


More Than Survive

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Lost and Found [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Artist Steve Rogers, BAMF Tony Stark, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Omega Tony Stark, Sequel, Steve Feels, i dont feel like tagging beyond that tbh, i forgot to tag that, like there will be porn ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-09-16 20:40:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Sometimes Steve feels guilty about it, the way he feels about Tony, and other times he’s kind of resentful. Not to Tony, obviously, none of this is his fault but its sort of Bucky’s. They share basically everything and now suddenly he decides he wants something of his own? Its not logical by any stretch, so Steve keeps that to himself because Tony isn’t a bone to fight over, he’s a person, but god looking at him with Bucky hurts. Even if its no one's problem but Steve's.(Reading the first story will be unnecessary in understanding this one!)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahh, I've gotten to a sequel on this bad boi. To clarify on that Steve/Bucky/Tony tag (which makes me sad because it spoils the story a little) its more like Steve and Bucky both end up dating Tony, but not each other by any stretch. Just so y'all know what you're getting into.
> 
> Also sex is a thing that will feature in this so be aware of that- in the same tone as the first part of this story. Which you won't have had to read to get this- frankly its all porn anyways so like... you don't learn a whole lot. This part is like the story version of the last part, but still with porn interludes lmao.

Steve is on the couch attempting to sketch something that isn’t his current muse when Tony and Bucky stumble in the door. Its not really unusual, the two are attached at the hip more often than not these days, and Steve does his best not to be irritated at the way Bucky clings to Tony, grinning wide like no one else in the world exists. Tony looks at him the same way, admiration clear on his features as he pulls Bucky into a kiss and Steve looks away. He can hear the two of them shuffle around and Bucky must trip on something, presumably Tony, because he lets out a noise of surprise and Tony laughs as the scuffling gets a little more scattered before stopping.

“Hey Steve,” Tony says. He looks up just in time to watch Bucky drag him off while Tony rolls his eyes. “You’re so rude,” he tells Bucky.

“Whatever, he knows where we are, he doesn’t need a hello- come on,” he says, hastily dragging Tony off to the bedroom. Tony shrugs and follows him along, giving Steve a ‘what do you do’ kind of look. He sighs softly, keeping his annoyance mostly to himself before he turns back to his sketch pad and decides fuck it. He might as well draw Tony, its not like he’s been able to draw fuck all else lately.

Sometimes he feels guilty about it, the way he feels about Tony, and other times he’s kind of resentful. Not to Tony, obviously, none of this is his fault but its sort of Bucky’s. They share basically everything and now suddenly he decides he wants something of his own? Its not logical by any stretch, so Steve keeps that to himself because Tony isn’t a bone to fight over, he’s a person, and he tends to be a very vocal person about his wants and needs. That’s what attracts him to Tony to begin with.

So far though, he’s not said much of anything about Steve to indicate any sort of feelings any which way aside from basic politeness. They talk plenty at night too, when Tony can’t sleep, but he’s not one of those moron alphas who takes a simple conversation as a sign of interest. Sometimes Natasha calls him at 2 a.m to tell him about her spiders- its not like late night conversations are all that special. Actually, the ones with Natasha might be but that’s more because of the subject matter than anything. Still, he ignores his stupid feelings towards Tony because no one asked for them, himself included, and they’re his problem, not Tony’s or Bucky’s. Doesn’t mean he’s all that happy about it, but his drawing of Tony is coming out nice at least.

*

Tony tries, he does, but sleep has never come naturally so eventually he drags his ass out of bed because if nothing else Steve is usually awake too. No idea what keeps him up but Tony at least has something to do besides design things to try and cure his boredom. Suspect motives on Steve’s behalf or not, Tony enjoys his late night conversations with Steve because he’s usually got nothing else better to do. Steve looks up from his drawing and smiles when he sees him, raising an eyebrow at his shirt. “What?” he asks.

“That used to be mine. Before Bucky stole it and never gave it back,” he says, eyeing the shirt Tony is currently in. Its more comfortable than his clothing anyways, or at least that’s what he tells himself. The knowledge explains why Steve is having a hard time looking away from him, try as he might and Tony can tell he is trying too. It’s almost funny, his lack of subtlety, but Tony doesn’t say anything about it either way. No sense in ruining good conversation at a time when he usually gets none.

“God, is there _anything_ you two don’t share?” he asks. He and Rhodey are close, but Steve and Bucky bring a new definition to ‘close’.

Steve shrugs, “a brain?” he offers.

Tony laughs, “yeah, debatable. I don’t think I’ve ever met two people who know each other as well as you two do,” he says honestly.

“That’s what happens when you know each other from birth,” Steve says like that’s a real explanation.

“Plenty of people know each other from birth, doesn’t make them close. Family, for example,” Tony points out.

“You and Rhodey are the same way,” Steve tries but yeah, not even remotely true. Even they have a limit to closeness and sexual partners tend to be it.

“Not like you and Bucky. Though I should probably call him,” he murmurs more to himself than Steve, and then tries to remember where his phone even is.

“Its two in the morning, let the guy sleep,” Steve says, apparently sensing his thoughts. Shit, right, he can’t sleep and that’s why he’s up. He’s due for a crash any day now but until then he’s awake.

He sighs, “right. So what are you drawing anyways?” he asks, standing on his toes to get a look at what’s in Steve’s notebook but he’s already drawn the book to his chest.

“Nothing all that important. What are you working on in class?” he asks. All of it goes straight over his head, Tony doesn’t know why he asks, but he tells Steve anyways. He’d prefer to talk things out with Rhodey because he actually knows what the hell he’s saying but Steve throws in his own input every once and awhile too. Most of it isn’t relevant but Tony doesn’t mind that.

By the time Bucky drags his ass out of bed Tony is already gone to class because some freak decided nine a.m classes were necessary.

*

Rhodey looks over him like he’s going to find something wrong with him and Tony has no idea why he does this still. “Rhodes, I’m not dying. Get over it,” he says but his tone is fond, teasing.

He sighs, “look, forgive me for being weirded out that you randomly spent a weekend with a guy then moved in with him less than a week later. That’s not really your style,” he points out.

Tony rolls his eyes, “Rhodey, doing dumb shit impulsively without thinking it through is _exactly_ my style. And it’s been eight months, give Bucky a break. Even Pepper and Happy like him and you remember how Happy and Pepper felt about the last one.”

Rhodey sighs and nods a little, “yeah I uh… Happy _did_ get Sunset arrested multiple times. She was a creep though, and also an impulsive decision you decided to keep quiet about. Or at least as quiet as you could with Happy up her ass all the time.”

Yeah, Happy is one loyal employee. Tony hadn’t expected his grandfather’s stupid decision to get him a bodyguard to grow into a friendship- especially since Happy is only around because Tony’s an omega, not because he genuinely needs any kind of protection, but that’s what happened. And Pepper, shit, if he thought Happy was bad with his overprotective tendencies Pepper is a million times worse. Sunset might have been shit, but Christine was okay. A little pointy in personality, but still okay, not that Pepper cared much about that before she chased her off. To be fair she did write a scathing article about him but frankly none of it was untrue so Tony hadn’t been too upset about it. Pepper didn’t share that sentiment.

“Fine, Sunset sucked. I should have known that thanks to her shit name, but Bucky isn’t Sunset.” Or any other shitty asshole he’s dated. Not that he’s dated a long list of people, not by his standards anyways. Now everyone _else_ assumes he’s some huge slut and sure, he’s gotten around a little, but technically he’s only every slept with Bucky and also people only care about his sexual activity because he’s an omega. Not to mention he’s hardly spent enough time with the majority of the people he’s dated to have slept with them all but whatever. Point is Bucky isn’t an asshole and Rhodey can drop his guard.

“Well I don’t know that and I’m the only one left wondering so now I have to be extra vigilant,” he says and Tony rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

“You’re paranoid, Rhodes.” Might piss him off if he didn’t know that’s a Tony specific thing, that overprotective nature, and also he’s an omega too. Usually they’re less likely to be biased to themselves not that Tony hasn’t met the occasional moron who is. Still, Rhodey has learned that over protection is probably for the best where Tony is concerned. As Rhodey puts it he has the decision-making skills of a white person in a horror movie. Sometimes Tony resents that he’s kind of right about that.

“I’m just paranoid enough. So how’s your boy toy?” he asks.

Tony snorts, “think I’m technically the boy toy, age difference and all. And he’s fine.” Actually its Steve that’s acting weird, which Bucky has noticed not that he’s noticed the reason. Tony has because he’s not a fucking idiot, he knows what interest in him looks like, but Steve has impeccable manners he will give him that. He keeps his feelings to himself. Bucky hasn’t noticed though and Tony has no idea what will happen when he does. He’d imagine nothing, its probably not the first time that’s happened and frankly the two share literally everything, its not that much of a stretch for Steve to connect that to romantic partners too. They already share sex partners, but Tony has a feeling his life won’t be that damn simple.

Rhodey makes a non committal noise. “How’s that working, the age difference thing?” he asks.

There’s a reason, Tony knows, because Rhodey doesn’t usually ask weird questions like that. “Fine. Probably not the kind of thing that’d work for most, but fine.” He’d ask Rhodey why he’s interested but he wants to make Rhodey sweat a little.

“Why wouldn’t it work for most?” he asks and Tony knows that’s connected to his own feelings towards whatever- he knows Rhodey panicking inside when he sees it.

“Because most people don’t have my amount of life experience at eighteen,” he says. Almost nineteen, but still. Doesn’t change the fact that most people his age are ridiculously immature. Tony is jealous of that sometimes, because they got to live lives that didn’t force them to grow up so fast. Tony has had no choice. He graduated with his undergrad at fourteen- hanging out with college kids meant he needed to grow maturity and fast and that had been hard as a kid. By the time he finished his Masters and went into his first PhD program he’d been good at blending in. Now, starting his second PhD, he’s a master at blending in with an older crowd.

All the shit with the company, Howard, and generally being an omega didn’t exactly help things along either. There was no chance for him to be a kid so now most people wouldn’t guess his age unless there was some other indication for it. He doesn’t even look his age either. Steve had been in for one fuck of a shock when he found out and chewed Bucky out something good for getting him involved with someone so young but it seems he’s moved past that now. Probably because, like Bucky, he senses that Tony isn’t really normal for his age- not when he doesn’t get a choice but to act older. By now it isn’t even an act anymore, that’s just how he is. Even his friends are all older than him though, for their respective programs, Rhodey and Tony are both the youngest.

Rhodey considers this for a moment before sighing. “I uh, met someone but he’s a little older and I don’t want to look like a dumbass. Figured you’d be the expert on how not to act a fool,” he says.

Tony grins because yes, yes he is the expert on How To Be Older Than Your Biological Age. “ _He_?” he asks though, just to make Rhodey sweat it out a little more.

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “lets not pretend like _that_ was the most compelling thing you found in that sentence,” he says.

Yeah, he’s right, but still. “Who is this guy?” Tony asks, moving towards a computer in the lab. Benefit to being alumni and also the shining gem of the school- his own lab space. He shares with Rhodey because he’s not a heathen- that’s what best friends are for.

“None of your business, give a guy advice. Its your best friend duty,” Rhodey tells him.

“Name?” Tony asks again.

Rhodey rolls his eyes again. “Sam,” he says. “Wilson,” he throws in when Tony gives him a _really_ look. The name isn’t familiar.

“Avoid talking about your interests until you know about his- gives you a good gauge of what his maturity level is. Tailor the conversation to that at first; establish that you aren’t a twelve year old buffoon. _Then_ tell him you’ve lost every Mario Kart race you’ve ever had to your awesome best friend who is much more important to you than him. Then it looks like you know how to let loose, but not that you’re immature. Boom- Looking Older Than You Are hacked.” He turns to the computer and nods to himself, “also Sam’s cute.” He can see how Rhodey discovered his sudden bisexuality, the guy is actually gorgeous. Damn, Tony’s almost sad he ended up with Bucky now.

“You seriously put _that_ much effort into conversations?” Rhodey asks and Tony shrugs.

“Second nature to me now. Also it’s a good way to figure out if you’re talking to a creep- they always give you slightly off answers if they’re gross. You’ll know one when you hear it,” he says. Alphas, they’re either absolutely obtuse, or- and Tony is sure this is the case- intentionally ignorant about their subtly creepy behavior. Frankly Tony is sure alphas know when they’re putting an omega into an unwanted sexual position partially because it feels like they all share notes given how similar their behavior is, but also because no one is so stupid that they consistently miss that someone is uncomfortable with their slightly off color come ons.

But a quick read on Sam suggests he’s not much of a creep. Actually, he’s a therapist and that’s interesting. At least there’s a good chance that he doesn’t have the emotional range of a teaspoon and the personality of a taxidermy rat. Alphas are a shit pick of the litter that way. Most of the time Tony prefers betas. Less work socially and emotionally, plus they have the added benefit of no heats. All the benefits of both an alpha and an omega with none of the hassle either of them have. Which is interesting, considering his relationship with Bucky. But hey, preferences aren’t hard and fast rules. And alphas do smell more appealing, when they actually have hygiene skills.

“Fuck that, I lied. I’m just doing whatever, he can take it or leave it,” Rhodey says, shaking his head.

“I don’t know man, I’d invent a whole personality to fuck this guy,” Tony says.

Rhodey rolls his eyes at him, “of course you would,” he mumbles.

Tony shrugs, “just saying.”

“You have issues. Did you figure out where my math went wrong on my last assignment? Because that’s due in two hours and I kind of have to hand that in,” he says and Tony nods.

“I emailed you the corrected version,” he tells Rhodey, who looks relieved. He’ll explain where the math went wrong later.

*

Steve doesn’t know what’s worse- Tony’s pitiful attempts at cooking or Bucky’s. Bucky at least has the benefit of never being taught how to cook but given his upbringing he knows Tony has had hours worth of lessons so he’s got no excuse. Especially when he knows Tony is good at chemistry.

“Look, I blow stuff up when I cook. Seriously, charm school gave up on me,” he says, shaking his head sadly. He actually looks a little traumatized and Steve wants to know the story behind that.

Bucky wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him close and Steve resists the urge to wrinkle his nose at that. “What’s charm school?” he asks.

Tony makes a face that reminds Steve strangely of a disgusted cat. “Rich people oppression,” he says, dead serious. Steve can’t help but laugh at the absolute absurdity of that and Tony looks offended. “You laugh but you don’t know, it’s a horrible experience and they stick stickers on you every time you fuck up. I’m sure no one in this room will be surprised to learn I looked like I had a disease by the time they were through with me. Probably didn’t help that I started mutiny whenever I could.”

Bucky frowns, “mutiny? What kind of revolt could you manage to inspire out of rich kids? Telling them their daddies will have to pay taxes now?” he asks and Steve snorts but Bucky looks genuinely baffled.

“Nah, I just pointed out that ninety percent of the shit we were learning was outdated and also made no sense. Like I’m not wearing white to some creepy omega ball so everyone knows I’m a virgin. That’s fucking weird, why do people need to know that about me on sight?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

That’s not something Steve considered, but that’s actually a good point. “What happens if you don’t wear white?” Bucky asks.

“You get kicked out, disappoint your grandfather, get a reputation as the school slut, and fail charm school. To be honest I’m kind of proud of that, disappointed grandfather aside,” he says. From what he’s mentioned he seems closer to his grandfather than his father. Actually from what he’s mentioned Howard seems like a real asshole.

“People assumed you weren’t a virgin because you didn’t wear white? What the fuck?” Bucky asks, confused.

Tony snorts, “oh my god, you two are making the exact same face. Also, bonus points to Steve for a face journey that was more cinematic than my being booted from charm school,” he says, grinning at him.

Steve sighs, “I just… I don’t understand that. Any of that. Including the rich people oppression thing,” he says, shaking his head.

“Go to charm school and you’ll understand it’s the only time rich people are oppressed for being rich,” Tony says. “The fucking worst. Even Rhodey agreed and he laughed when I first told him that so clearly I’m right.”

“Do alphas have to wear white?” Bucky asks and Steve gives him a _look_. They all know the answer to that.

“Nope. Charm school people didn’t like it when I asked why alphas slutting it up was fine,” he says, snickering to himself.

“What I don’t get is that betas are generally shamed for sleeping with anyone other than betas. Omegas are shamed if they’re not sleeping with only one alpha ever. Alphas aren’t supposed to fuck each other, but also they’re supposed to have wild sex lives. Who are we fucking? Ourselves?” Steve asks, frowning.

Tony lets out a long sigh, “if only alphas would go fuck themselves. No offense to you two, but majority of you suck and don’t know what a shower is. Thank god you two didn’t decide hygiene is for omegas only. That shit was not meant to be optional no matter your ABO score,” Tony says, eyes wide with horror.

Steve really wishes he didn’t relate to that statement but he does. “Why did alphas decide soap was an omega thing? Of all the dumb shit we decided that is among the worst of our decisions,” he says, shaking his head.

Bucky sighs, “I wish that wasn’t true, but I’ve seen soap commercials obviously targeting alpha audiences and frankly we should not have to be convinced the soap will make us more alpha-y to use the shit,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, and even then only four of you are convinced to buy it. Seriously, how do you guys stand each other’s stench?” he asks.

They don’t, in Steve’s experience. Though in his experience he tends to avoid large populations of alphas altogether for the same reasons omegas and betas avoid them. Sometimes he just wants some fucking _peace_ and alphas, he swears, try to turn everything into a pissing contest. Thank god Bucky isn’t like that, Steve would have to throw him out a window.

“Honestly, I don’t,” Bucky says, voicing Steve’s thoughts. “I hate being around people who act like everything is a competition, smell like ass, throw food, and inexplicably bite,” he says, wrinkling his nose.

“The biting thing is so weird, why do we _do_ that?” Steve asks. He’s seen it enough times in fights to be baffled. Including fights where people try to take their biters to _him_.

Tony frowns, “what the fuck?” he asks though Steve doesn’t know why he’s so confused.

“Bucky bites you on a semi regular basis, why do you look so confused?” he asks and Tony frowns more.

“ _Consensually_. He didn’t just try and take a chunk out of me. You know what, this weird shit alphas do- this is the reason betas tried to collectively stamp out the genetic mutation that resulted in alphas when it happened. They saw smelly, bitey people with no manners and a superiority complex and decided ‘nope, yeet ‘em off a cliff.’” Tony waves a hand around to demonstrate his point and Bucky’s eyebrows draw together.

“What’s ‘yeet’?” he asks. Thank god, because Steve is confused about that too.

Tony squints at him, twisting in his arms so Bucky knows just how confused he is. “ _Fuck_ you’re old,” he says, shaking his head and pulling himself free before walking away.

Bucky turns to Steve, more confused than before. “Look, I don’t know what ‘yeet’ is, I just hear teenagers yell it a lot,” he says, shrugging.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “you’re useless,” he mumbles. Steve flips him off but Bucky ignores him. “I’m not _that_ old, am I?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious and Steve rolls his eyes.

“No, Bucky, you aren’t. Get me the garlic, you know how Tony is about the damn garlic.” He claims he’s too Italian to not eat copious amounts of it but Steve is somewhat shocked that he never seems to smell permanently like a garlic bulb he eats so much of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And sex appears from the wild, followed closely but Bucky's mental health problems and also his arm.

Tony is roused from sleep by the feeling of being dragged off the bed. He waves an arm around at the general vicinity of Bucky, he’s assuming, “lemmie sleep,” he mumbles.

A hand curls up his thigh and Tony cracks an eye open. Sure enough Bucky is standing at the end of the bed looking down at him appreciatively. Tony rolls his open eye fondly and shuts it again, trying unsuccessfully to escape Bucky’s attentions. “You’ve been asleep for twelve hours,” Bucky whines at him, “I think I’ve shown impeccable self control this whole time,” he adds.

He smiles a bit at Bucky’s dramatics. “Have not, leave me be,” Tony tells him, waving a hand at him to try and shoo him off. Bucky catches his wrist and crawls onto the bed, pinning Tony’s wrist above his head. Even half asleep that’s kind of hot and Tony lets out a small hum of appreciation.

Bucky leans in and noses at his jaw until Tony tilts his head to the side and lets him sniff at his neck. Damn alphas. He shivers still, tilting his head more to give Bucky better access. “Thought so,” Bucky murmurs, nipping at the space under his jaw. He runs a hand up Tony’s thigh softly; teasing as his teeth graze the skin on his neck, grip on the wrist he’s pinned above Tony’s head growing a little tighter. He can’t help the soft moan he lets out as Bucky lifts hiss shirt a little and pulls back, running his hands over Tony’s body. He reaches out to Bucky with his freshly released hand, settling in on Bucky’s arm as he moves a hand up Tony’s torso. “You are so stunning,” he says, looking over Tony’s body with lust, but there’s something else there too. Love, Tony knows, pretty much only because that’s the same way Rhodey looks at chocolate cake. Not like anyone else in his life has looked at him with any approximation of love aside from Pepper and Rhodey mostly, and that’s a different kind of love entirely.

Tony grins, “I know,” he says in a cocky tone. Bucky laughs a little, shaking his head.

“Best and worst part about you,” he tells him, leaning in to kiss him again. He kisses down Tony’s neck slowly, taking his time as Tony shivers under him. “But, since you’re tired…” he murmurs as he pulls away and no, rude, Tony is so not allowing it.

He follows Bucky’s movements, sitting up and scrambling to pull Bucky back. “Hey, no, get back here,” he says, crawling in to Bucky’s lap. Bucky wraps his arms around Tony’s waist because he’s only got like a tiny sliver of self control.

“You were the one who wanted to be left alone,” Bucky reasons, nose in the air like he believes that for a second.

“That was five minutes ago,” Tony says, “I’m a new person now.” Bucky insists on taking a stand, nose still in the air so Tony takes drastic action, leaning into his space and nosing at his neck a little. Bucky’s arms tighten around him and he sighs, pressing Tony into his body. “Thought so,” Tony murmurs, throwing Bucky’s words back at him.

“Don’t be cocky,” Bucky murmurs and Tony laughs, nipping at Bucky’s neck. For someone who had been resistant to the idea at first he’s not now, moaning softly as Tony’s teeth graze a sensitive spot under his jaw. Bucky slips a hand under Tony’s shirt, technically Bucky’s shirt that he stole to sleep in, and lifts it over his head, tossing it aside. Tony frowns down at himself.

“How is it that I always end up naked first?” he asks. Every time- he doesn’t get it.

Bucky laughs, “you consistently wear less clothes,” he points out and true.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “clothes are the worst, I wish we were all nudists.” Sure, he likes looking pretty as much as the next guy, but also why is _that_ the norm instead of nakedness? Its strange to him how revolting humans find their own bodies given that they straight up made being naked illegal if you’re in public. But Bucky does make a point about his general lack of a meaningful amount of clothes.

“I can assure you I am not fuckin’ stopping you from walking around naked,” Bucky says, looking delighted by this possibility. Yeah, Tony has no doubt he wouldn’t care about that.

“Sure, but I might give Steve a heart attack,” he says. Poor guy probably wouldn’t be able to hide his ridiculous crush then but Bucky shrugs.

“Nothing he hasn’t seen before,” he says and that’s just _weird_. Alphas are supposed to be jealous according to the stereotypes- not that Tony really believes that outside of normal jealous feelings- but Bucky has no qualms with Steve. Doesn’t seem to care for when anyone _else_ eyes Tony up, but Steve? Doesn’t even fucking _notice_. Its not like Steve is subtle either, guy is almost more obvious than Tony and that’s pretty bad all things considered.

Tony shakes his head, “you two are weird,” he mumbles as Bucky tips him back onto the mattress, nipping at his jaw.

“Are not, s’just how we are,” he murmurs. True, which makes Tony wonder how Bucky would feel about Steve’s romantic feelings if he doesn’t much care about the sexual ones. Actually, no, he kind of already knows the answer to that. It isn’t like Steve hasn’t made jokes about it- has since they first met- and Bucky hadn’t taken kindly to any of them. It’d been a little buried under familiarity and the assumption Steve isn’t serious, but its there nonetheless.

He gasps a little when Bucky probes at his hole gently with his fingers, pulling him effectively back into the moment. “You think too much,” he tells Tony.

True, but its hard to turn off his brain most of the time. Its why he has a hard time sleeping. “Well don’t leave me hanging now,” Tony tells him, prodding Bucky forward. Bucky laughs, shaking his head at him and shifting his position so he’s looking down at Tony. It’s a weird _thing_ Bucky likes to do, watch him like this, so he assumes he must look especially appealing to Bucky when he presses his fingers into him. It _feels_ great anyways and he lets out a soft moan.

Bucky grins down at him, “you’re always so good for me,” he murmurs, “always ready.” He knows he’s slick, never takes long with Bucky. Not hard, Tony thinks, when Bucky is as attractive as he is and not just in looks. Its not that physicality isn’t important to Tony, it has its place, but its not the first thing he looks for and it had been the way Bucky carried himself that drew Tony’s eye to begin with. Bucky curls his fingers a little and Tony gasps, back arching a little. “Get out of your head, baby,” Bucky murmurs, recognizing the signs of Tony’s short attention span now. It’s a lot easier to keep him on track in heat, less so any other time.

Tony half smiles up at Bucky, considering their position for a moment before he knocks Bucky’s hand away from his ass and hooks a leg around him, flipping them over so Bucky’s on his back. Bucky makes a soft noise of annoyance but he can suffer. Tony curls his fingers around Bucky’s metal hand and pins it above his head, giving it an appreciative once over. “Can you _not_?” Bucky asks, frowning at him a little.

He sighs because to him that arm is a thing of beauty but to Bucky it’s a source of insecurity. “Sorry,” he murmurs, leaning in to kiss Bucky softly. Bucky lets out a soft noise of appreciation as he slides his other hand up Tony’s leg and the mood recovers fast because alphas are easy, and Bucky is especially easy all things considered.

“S’okay,” Bucky murmurs, nipping at Tony’s lip as he reaches around, guiding his fingers back inside. Tony moans into the kiss, earning a soft laugh from Bucky. “You gunna stay with me this time?” he asks and Tony gives him a look.

“S’your fault for waking me up,” he tells Bucky because he refuses to take responsibility for his poor attention span.

“Waking you up wasn’t even the problem you little shit,” Bucky says, laughing. He curls his fingers and Tony lets out another gasp.

“Was so. Faster,” he tells Bucky, prodding him a little for emphasis.

“Bossy,” Bucky admonishes like he does every time, pretending like he doesn’t like things this way.

Tony nods a little jerkily, “can’t help it,” he says, biting his lip as Bucky moves just right. “Do that again.” He does, indulging Tony because he always does that too, watching as Tony’s breath hitches a little and his fingers tighten around Bucky’s metal hand as he presses it further into the mattress.

Bucky leans up and kisses him softly, “you’re gorgeous like this,” he tells Tony, “beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Tony breathes out, though its unrelated to Bucky’s compliments, and Bucky laughs.

“Now you stay with me, go figure,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “Tell me what you want,” he says, slowing his pace and Tony gives him a dirty look for it.

“Not that, stop teasing me,” Tony tells him.

Bucky laughs again, shaking his head. “Teasing you is fun. Tell me what you want,” he says. He moves just a little faster, letting his fingers sink just a little deeper and Tony moans. “Gunna just leave you here if I don’t get an answer,” Bucky warns him and he’ll do it too, the asshole.

Tony gives him another dirty look, “no! You don’t make a pizza and not eat it, Bucky!”

That earns him another laugh, “did you just compare yourself to _pizza_?”

“Stop your teasing and fuck me, you damn asshole,” Tony tells him.

Must have been the answer Bucky was looking for because he grins, flipping them back over and the noise Tony makes is absolutely a _dignified_ squawk. From the look on Bucky’s face he doesn’t think so but Bucky’s opinion isn’t useful right now so he can stop that. He pulls back from Tony a little and he doesn’t whine, that’s _not_ the noise he makes, when Bucky does it but its almost worth it to see the look on his face as he looks Tony over. It doesn’t last long before he seems to formulate a plan in his head. “Think I might take it slow,” Bucky tells him, slowly pushing his fingers back inside and Tony makes an annoyed noise.

“No you will not,” he says, “get with the damn program! You started it, you’re going to finish it. On my terms because you interrupted- _oh_ \- my nap.”

“Twelve hours boarders on a coma, not a nap,” Bucky tells him but he does pick up his pace. Tony’s eyes roll back a bit when Bucky moves just right.

“Whatever. Still woke me up so you owe me,” he says. “Plus you never do slow well.” Likes to think he can tease Tony but he mostly only torments himself with the pace he sets and then abandons it fast. If he doesn’t Tony takes things into his own hands and makes sure Bucky abandons his slow, should-be-illegal pace.

Bucky hums softly, head tilted to the side as he watches himself finger Tony. That really has no right to be that attractive but when he pulls his finger back Tony makes a disappointed noise. Bucky shakes his head at him, “so damn impatient- you want me to fuck you or not?” he asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “well hurry up,” he tells Bucky, pouting at him for good measure because Bucky’s weird and likes when he pouts. Bucky grins, leaning in to give him a brief kiss before trying unsuccessfully to remove his belt. Tony gives him a few moments, somewhat amused, before he sits up and pulls Bucky’s hands out of the way. “Do you need a genius to take your belt off?” he asks, laughing at his own joke but Bucky doesn’t look as amused as Tony is. “Don’t give me that look, this happens every time. Just stop wearing belts,” he says, pulling it free. He settles a hand over the waist of Bucky’s jeans and looks up at him. Bucky’s looking at his hand in anticipation and this is always Tony’s favorite part- for all his talk of teasing he always gets more impatient than Tony does.

“You gunna do something?” he asks as if on cue and Tony snorts.

“Nope- teasing you is fun,” he tells Bucky. Bucky raises an eyebrow and yeah okay he’s right, Tony isn’t going to wait, but its fun to toy with Bucky a little before he gets to the point. Its only fair given how much Bucky likes to test him. He pulls the button of Bucky’s pants free and grins when Bucky makes an appreciative noise. He shifts his position, crawling into Bucky’s lap again as be pulls Bucky free from his boxers, stroking him as he presses his face into Bucky’s neck, nosing at the space there.

Bucky gasps a little, arm circling around Tony’s waist. He nips at Bucky’s jaw, smiling when he gets another noise of appreciation out of Bucky before he lifts himself a little, bringing Bucky to his hole, sinking down just a little and coming back up. Bucky makes a small noise of protest and Tony pulls his head from his neck to watch Bucky’s face as he does it again. “Tony,” Bucky murmurs, mouth falling open a little until Tony pulls off again, laughing when Bucky gives him a dirty look for it. “You stop that,” he says as if Tony would listen to him anyways.

“You were the one who insisted on teasing,” Tony reminds him.

“Teasing _you_ ,” Bucky says. “This is just unfair.”

To him, maybe, but that’s the way Tony like it anyway. He does, however, decide to stop teasing Bucky and lets him slide in all the way. He’s granted with Bucky throwing his head back as he moans and he’s starting to see the appeal in necks for alphas. They’re so sniffable like this so he leans in, nosing at Bucky’s neck again as he starts to move. He’s gotten good at this, moving exactly the way Bucky wants him to, doing things just right. Bucky’s tight grip on his waist tells him he’s on the right track and when he pulls his face from Bucky’s neck he kisses him, rough and sloppy.

“That’s it,” Bucky tells him, “that’s what I was lookin’ for. Fuck you’re good like this,” Bucky murmurs.

Tony grins, “yeah I know. Gotten good at figuring out what you want.” He shifts his hips a little and Bucky bites his lip, half holding back his gasp as his hands tighten around Tony’s hips.

“Faster, baby,” Bucky tells him. “Need you,” he says, pressing his face into Tony’s neck and he shivers as he tangles his fingers through Bucky’s long hair. “Yeah, like that,” he murmurs into Tony’s ear, “so good, _so_ good like this.” He lets out a soft moan as Bucky’s teeth graze the sensitive skin of his neck and Bucky laughs. “Worth waking you up for, baby?” he asks and Tony nods.

“Always is,” he murmurs.

*

Tony looks like a mess but somehow even that works for him. Steve doesn’t really get how Tony manages to look good no matter what the situation is or maybe its because of his stupid, misplaced feelings that he feels that way. Bucky keeps pulling Tony close as soon as he strays too far and Steve resists the urge to roll his eyes. Tony doesn’t, giving him an admonishing look for his clinginess. “Stop that, I have things to do,” he says but his tone is light, teasing.

“You can wait,” Bucky tells him circling an arm around Tony’s waist and pulling him in. Tony goes, acting like it’s a hardship but any idiot can see that’s a show. Steve looks away because jealousy doesn’t look good on anyone, himself included, and he should probably find something to occupy his time with too.

Its Tony who accidentally manages to ruin the good mood though. Well, his and Bucky’s good mood. “Your arm needs work,” he tells Bucky. “Its been deteriorating for months, probably longer, but I’ve only been around that long so-”

“No,” Bucky says, interrupting Tony’s mini rant.

Tony looks up at him and he doesn’t quite look small, though he is, but he does look distinctly nonthreatening. “Bucky. You can’t just neglect it,” he murmurs.

He can and he will, Steve knows, because he really wants nothing to do with the arm. It took him years to even accept that it was there let alone to do any kind of work on it though Steve is sure its been in need for some time. Tony would know way more about that than him, of course.

“Leave it alone,” Bucky tells him, an edge to his voice that Tony picks up on but not quite enough, Steve knows, because he turns in Bucky’s arms so he’s facing him.

“Bucky,” Tony murmurs, voice pitched low, soothing. Might have worked, if not for Bucky’s general aversion to his arm. “I know you’re… not really fond of the arm, but it _does_ need-”

Bucky glares down at him, “I said _leave it_!” he snaps angrily. Tony takes a step back and something in his expression shifts, goes cold as some kind of emotional wall comes down. Bucky sees it right away but Tony is halfway across the room before he can even think of an apology. He looks over to Steve because that’s what he always does when he lands in hot water, goes to Steve. He sighs and picks himself up, knowing exactly where Tony is headed anyways and makes his way to the second bedroom in Bucky’s apartment that has sort of turned into Tony’s lab. Technically its Steve’s room, but its not like anyone anticipated him moving in pretty much around the same time Tony did so he ended up shuffled to the couch not that he minds. Probably because of that stupid crush of his on Tony. He’s too _old_ to have stupid whimsical feelings like this.

He knocks on the door to alert Tony of his presence and he only spares Steve a half a glance before looking back to whatever piece of tech he’s managed to make out of scraps now. Steve walks over to the bed, surprisingly clear of clutter today, and sits on it, leaning against the wall its pressed against for a long time before he speaks. “Alphas don’t do anger well,” Steve says eventually. Not, he thinks, that its inherent to their behavior, but it is pretty undeniable that they’re shit with expressing anger.

Tony looks up for a moment, considers him, and then looks back to his work. “I know that,” Tony says. Steve knows that too- he’s said more than enough for Steve to have picked up that Tony has been on the wrong end of that anger too many times. Usually, from his blasé comments, at the hands of his father.

“Its half the reason I don’t tend to spend time with them. Instead of having a conversation they get pissed off and yell, or throw shit, or stomp around in some bizarre display of dominance or whatever. I can’t handle that.” Makes him nervous and he knows Tony knows the feeling, most omegas do, but the confused look on Tony’s face is warranted.

“What made you aware of that?” he asks. He doesn’t really need to elaborate for him to know that alphas are general unaware that they do that stuff, or if they are they seem to think that omegas are too sensitive for thinking the behavior is unacceptable and that they should grow thicker skins and deal with it. Or emulate it- Steve isn’t sure what’s worse out of those options.

“My father,” he says, “was a real asshole. And when I was a kid I was small, sickly. Spent the first sixteen years of my life in and out of hospitals before I got lucky enough that most of my health issues just disappeared. Gave me a unique experience, I guess, given that alphas never liked me much either even though I was one. They think being smaller and sick is a reason to abuse and it always rubbed me the wrong way.” When he managed to hit a growth spurt and outgrew a lot of his childhood ailments he never could let that experience go, the way he was mistreated seemingly for fun. He could never do that to someone, couldn’t ever spend time with people who could. It meant he didn’t spend a lot of time with alphas because they tend to be the most open about their abusive habits.

Tony’s lips turn up a little but there’s no humor in it. “Not all alphas,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice and Steve prickles for a moment before relaxing because Tony knows how bullshit that statement is.

“Never liked when people said that like there isn’t a massive problem of alphas committing most violent crimes and omegas being more likely to die from being murdered by jealous alphas than almost anything else. Doesn’t matter if its all of us, its clearly way too many of us. And the assholes that want to talk about _alphas_ rights don’t ever talk about the alphas like me, who were sick, or disabled, or small and tormented for not fitting the stereotypes by other alphas let alone everyone else.” He shakes his head. “Probably because they don’t actually give a shit about alphas issues.”

Tony actually smiles at that, a little humor touching his features. “They don’t, and for some reason all look like they’re named ‘Chad’ and they belong to a fraternity. Rhodey an I have dubbed it the ‘my daddy will hear about this’ phase.”

Steve lets out a snort, “oh my god, that’s surprisingly accurate at least on a college campus,” he says.

“Yeah, if you aren’t in college they look like they fuck their cousins,” Tony says and Steve starts laughing again.

“Sometimes I wish I could defend alphas’ honor but like… its kind of true,” he says. “I mean I don’t think we’re born like that, but still.”

Tony nods, “me either, but when you get handed automatic respect no matter what stupid bullshit you’re spewing it goes to your head.”

So Steve knows. “it wasn’t a good experience, Bucky getting that arm.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “I’m not fucking stupid, I know that. I wouldn’t suggest doing anything to it if I wasn’t genuinely concerned with what its doing.”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “what _is_ it doing?”

Tony shrugs, “not sure, I’ve never seen anything like it but I know more than enough to know if something goes wrong with the design its not going to be pretty for Bucky, not with the way its integrated _into_ his biology. Upkeep is necessary.”

“I don’t think you’ll ever be able to convince Bucky to get you to look at it,” he says.

Tony sighs, sitting back in his seat and rubbing his temples. “Yeah, I got that impression, thanks.”

He wants to tell Tony that Bucky didn’t mean to snap at him like that but he did so instead he sighs. “He probably feels like a real asshole right about now,” he says. Course he did two seconds after he snapped at Tony but still.

“Good,” Tony mumbles, turning back to his work.

Steve sighs, “this is what he gets for choosing the worlds most stubborn omega,” he mumbles.

“Not my problem,” Tony says and Steve half smiles.

“I don’t think he’d have it any other way,” he says, not sure if he’s talking about Bucky at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony wakes up to the smell of cooking but when he reaches over Bucky is gone. Unusual, generally Tony is up before him, but he must have had something to do today so he gets up to find out what Steve is making. He might assume it was Bucky if he could cook worth of shit but he can’t. He’s almost worse at cooking than Tony is and that is a genuinely impressive feat.

When Steve spots him he smiles, “the food wake you up?” he asks and Tony nods. “Want to taste test it?” he asks, gesturing to whatever is in the pot.

He walks over, sticking his face above the pot and sniffing. Some kind of cream soup and it smells great. “Yeah, obviously,” he says, licking his lips. Thank god for Steve, without him he and Bucky would probably live on take out and the hopes and dreams of small children.

Steve reaches around him and picks up the spoon from the pot and Tony turns around as Steve blows on the liquid in the spoon before handing it out to Tony, hand under the spoon to catch any drips. That’s when Bucky walks in, as Tony takes the spoon into his mouth and he frowns at the two of them. That, Tony decides, is when he finally sees Steve’s more than obvious feelings for him because he goes from confused to offended to pissed in about six seconds flat and Tony doesn’t get that. “Hey Bucky,” Steve says, strangely ignorant to Bucky’s emotional journey.

“What are you doing?” he asks in a tone too cold to sound anything like Bucky’s normal voice. Tony’s hackles rise immediately but he ignores it. Jealousy, he supposes, is pretty normal even if, given the context of his relationship with Steve, it makes no fucking sense.

“Getting Tony to taste test the soup?” Steve asks, frowning like he’s baffled and honestly how is it that he doesn’t get Bucky this _one_ time? But then, Tony supposes, he does appear to be something of a blind spot for both of them.

He pulls the spoon from Steve’s grasp and his mouth, “its good. Needs more garlic though,” he says and Steve rolls his eyes.

“Predictable,” he mumbles and Tony is offended, really. There’s no need to insult his love of garlic.

“Why are you spoon feeding Tony?” Bucky asks, voice still cold though now there’s an edge of suspicion to it.

“Taste testing the soup, Bucky. Why are you acting so weird?” Steve asks, frowning.

“That didn’t look like taste testing soup to me,” Bucky says and its weird, Tony thinks, that Bucky isn’t directing any anger at him. It does, however, make him slightly less nervous.

Steve’s eyebrows draw together though, “what the fuck else does eating off a spoon look like to you, Bucky?” he asks but Tony already knows the answer to that.

“Intimate,” he says, drawing the attention to him. He regrets that instantly when Bucky glares at him, nixing his theory about Bucky not being pissed off at him pretty much immediately.

“Then why’d you do it?” he snaps and Tony’s hackles rise high again immediately.

“Because you have no fucking boundaries with Steve so sue me for not thinking eating soup off a spoon would set you off. I already fucked the guy and it was _your_ idea so how was I supposed to know soup was too far?” he snaps. He can feel the way he pulls himself back emotionally, crawls right back into the shell he usually lives in but the shell has served him well over the years so he doesn’t mind so much even if he knows Bucky is about to.

*

Steve wouldn’t have guessed that Tony would say everything he’s been thinking for the last several months but he does. First: he and Bucky generally don’t have boundaries and they’re both fine with it, including with Tony on several counts. Second: people tend to draw the line at _sex_ , not random taste testing ventures so what the fuck? Third: if Bucky is fine with sharing everything in his life with Steve, including sexual partners, why’s this suddenly a problem when ‘this’ is only a single intimate moment?

The argument goes nowhere fast mostly, Steve thinks, because Tony doesn’t deal with anger well when he’s on the receiving end of it or the giving end of it. He might keep his cool well on the surface but he’s not listening to Bucky, not really, he’s just arguing his points. However well constructed his argument is it doesn’t serve anyone well to not listen to what the other person is saying. Not that Bucky is saying much of value, he’s mostly just pissed off at Steve and yelling at Tony about it. And that gets him nowhere faster _especially_ because Tony knows Bucky’s argument, which basically boils down to ‘I don’t like that but can’t give a real reason for why my boundaries are suddenly broken’, is baseless at least in his eyes. Bucky has a reason, Steve knows, but of all the times stuff like this has happened with everyone either of them have ever dated he’s never figured out why Bucky always holds back in this _one_ area.

He suspects Bucky doesn’t want to admit whatever the real reason is out loud but instead of admitting to that at least he just claims he has no reason at all. Tony, ever the rational thinker, obviously doesn’t find much value in that and pushes for something better but Bucky eventually shuts down and just stops talking entirely, more willing to remain silent than give his actual reason. Whatever that reason is.

“Steve, is he going to answer me any time this fucking century?” Tony snaps, correctly guessing that he’s listening in not that he needed to stand this close to the bedroom door to hear all that.

“Nope,” Steve tells him. He probably won’t say much if anything for the next couple days and he suspects Tony will do the same. Neither of them willing to crawl out of their emotional shells for various reasons. He hears Tony make an annoyed noise and he leave the bedroom, walking off to his make shift lab space the way he does whenever anything makes him uncomfortable in any way so Steve follows. Cleaning up Bucky’s messes has always been second nature to him in the way Bucky cleaning his messes is second nature to Bucky.

“None of this makes any fucking sense,” Tony snaps, rounding on him as soon as he walks in and Steve sighs.

“I know. Good luck figuring it out though, no one else has and this is usually where all both of our relationships go to die. Inevitably they always hit this point and none of them survive.” It’s a fast de-escalation tactic mostly because he knows Tony genuinely cares about Bucky and doesn’t want to lose the relationship. He also happens to be good at finding information so maybe he’ll figure out what the hell is going on here. If nothing else it might be useful for Steve to know later even if Tony leaves. Though he hopes he doesn’t.

Tony considers that, losing steam fast as he takes that information in. “So this has happened before,” he states more than asks.

He nods, “not often, people usually ditch way faster than this, convinced Bucky and I are more in love with each other than we’d ever be with whomever we’re dating. But the ones that do get this far, yeah. Usually Bucky’s relationships- he’s better at keeping them than I am.”

Tony frowns, “weird. Bucky doesn’t think he’s as good at relationships as you are.”

Steve laughs without much humor. “I know, but I’m not good at relationships, I’m good at people and being good at people doesn’t mean you know how to be in a relationship with them. I tend to confuse my priorities.” It doesn’t help, he thinks, that no one has ever come before Bucky and no one he’s ever dated has been willing to play second fiddle. He supposes that’s somewhat reasonable, or it would be if not for all the relationships that tend to put a romance in the back seat. Kids being a good example of that, but other family bonds follow closely too. Sometimes pets, even. But no one he’s met accepts that a friendship would be more important than them. He doesn’t get that, why Bucky, his lifelong friend, should suddenly mean less to him because they aren’t dating. And why whomever he’s dating should automatically be more important to him. He’s not willing to compromise on it and that’s cost him every romantic relationship he’s ever had.

“Guess that’s a good point. What makes Bucky’s relationships last longer?” he asks.

He shrugs, “the illusion that that maybe whoever he’s with will eventually be more important than me. I’m not sure, to be honest, but that’s my theory.”

“So he’s less blunt about exactly how tangled you two are with each other,” Tony says, wording it better than he had.

“Basically, I think. Not like I’ve ever asked, usually it gets to a point where whomever we’re dating hates either me or Bucky and that… doesn’t end well.” Well, doesn’t end well for _them_ and its weird, Steve thinks, that almost every single person either of them have dated assumed they’d be chosen over Steve or Bucky. Mostly because there’s never been any evidence that’d happen outside wishful thinking.

“And neither of you accidentally ended up interested in the same person?” he asks. Something must show on his face because Tony rolls his eyes at him. “I’m not an idiot Steve, I know what desire looks like. You’ve had whatever feelings for me almost as long as Bucky has. Has that never happened before? Because I can’t imagine that it hasn’t.”

Not outside of a sexual context, no. Which, now that Tony mentions it, _is_ kind of strange. “Guess there was a point where we decided romance was off limits without ever saying it out loud. And usually we don’t share a type.” It just so happens that Tony is the perfect combination of everything both of them want in a person. Bucky likes a certain level of fast recklessness and adventurism and Steve tends to like headstrong passion. No one has ever met all those requirements quite like Tony.

“Yes you do, you just find different traits in the same kind of person attractive. You two have seriously never developed feelings for the same person?” he asks and Steve shrugs, then considers it.

“To be honest I don’t think that’s ever happened because we generally know that’s not going to fly with the third person. I don’t think that’s actually off limits with you, not the way you’re consistently challenging any norm you can get your hands on. The people we date don’t tend to be quite _that_ open to new experiences.” Or relationship types. Nothing against it really, but Steve wonders if monogamy is ever something that would work for him given his relationship with Bucky. The evidence suggests no, but for all he knows he hasn’t met the right person yet.

Tony tilts his head to the side, “and you’re not threatened by Bucky at all,” he more states than anything.

“I’ve had Bucky in my life in about every capacity imaginable- why would this work any different?” They work better than anyone else either of them have been with, why would they suddenly not get along with each other because they share a partner? Bucky has some kind of answer to that but Steve isn’t privy for pretty much the first time in a really, _really_ long time. The last time he had to guess anything about Bucky they were like eight, maybe younger.

“People think romance is a soul mate kind of deal,” Tony points out.

“And what, you can’t have more than one? Because if soul mates are a thing Bucky is definitely mine and there’s no romance there,” he says. Its not what he’d call a friendship either, not the way he’s used to them outside of Bucky, but it sure as hell isn’t the kind of thing that’d result in wedding bells or whatever. Never has been no matter how much people insist that’s the case.

“Well, Rhodey would be mine, no offense to Bucky. No one else will ever know me as well as he does. So what the fuck do I do now?” he asks.

Steve shrugs, “how the hell do I know? I’ve never been here either. Not like this anyway.”

“Well, it’d be nice if Bucky gave me an actual fucking reason for his freak out aside from ‘I don’t like it.’ Fucking _why_? He doesn’t give a shit about any other non boundary you two have, why’s _soup tasting_ suddenly a problem?” He’s angry; Steve can see it, but mostly out of frustration.

“He has a reason, he just doesn’t want to say it out loud. He’s probably self conscious,” he says. Bucky has always been the more self conscious of the two after he lost his arm. Before that he’d been a lot more secure with himself but after, well.

Tony rubs his temples and sighs. “But _why_ is he self conscious? First of all you two are weird, I’ve never met anyone who shares as much as the two of you who don’t get pissed off at accidentally stepping on each other’s toes after a few days. Second- as a group we’ve already shared more than most other people ever would in a relationship. I don’t understand how I’ve hit a nerve when I didn’t really do much of anything. And your feelings have been obvious for months and you have impeccable manners I will give you that. But this shouldn’t be a surprise to Bucky at all.”

It certainly wasn’t a surprise to Tony, obviously, and that’s news to Steve. “How’d you know when Bucky didn’t?” That’d been how he gauged how obvious he was, by how much or more accurately how little, Bucky knew. But apparently Tony knew before Bucky did.

“Do I look like I have an answer to that? I’m not stupid, I already pointed out that I know what desire looks like. Gets thrown my way a lot. How Bucky didn’t notice is beyond me given that anyone else with functioning senses would have seen it.” Or Tony has better observation skills than he gives himself credit for, Steve thinks. It makes a type of sense that Tony would be more attuned to what sexual feelings directed at him look like given how often he’s seen people make their feelings his problem versus Bucky, who has no real reason to look for any cues that Steve has any type of feelings for Tony aside from friendly ones.

He sighs, “well, this is going to be awkward. Want some of the soup I made?” Food might not make anything better really, but it makes Steve feel a little better anyway.

*

Since Bucky is being a damn prick for no perceivable reason Tony decides to do some research on one Sam Wilson. Unfortunately for him he determines in three seconds flat that Sam isn’t stupid, which is good but also not good because he faked needing therapy to get here. They stare each other down for a long moment before Sam speaks. “Rhodey said you’d do something stupid,” he says eventually. “Though I’m curious as to why you chose _this_.”

Tony squints, “are you trying to psychoanalyze me? Because one, Freud was a fucking idiot and two, trapping you at work means you can’t escape.” Simple logic.

Sam raises an eyebrow, “the door is literally ten feet away and there’s nothing stopping me from walking out. Color me curious though, what makes you discredit Freud?”

What makes him- “have you _read_ that guy’s shit? First of all he was obsessed with sex and obviously knew dick about the Oedipus myth, second, dude was clearly into _way_ too much coke, and third, he pulled shit out of literally nowhere. What was that one case… Dora, who was _clearly_ harassed by that Herr K dude and obviously _not_ in love with him what the fuck. And the match box thing? So if a patient noticed it it meant something but if they didn’t it meant something? That’s bad science and also it’s a fucking match box. If someone doesn’t notice it its because its small, not because they want to fuck their father and are also in love with their brother or whatever _wild_ sex related thing Freud pulled from his coke stash that morning,” he says, shaking his head.

To his surprise Sam laughs, “props to you for doing your research, probably in an attempt to somehow discredit me, but that’s a great summation. For the record I mostly agree- Freud had interesting theories of the mind and some of them had good merit. But also he got into drugs way too much, spent a strange amount of time focused on sex, and kind of liked to pull stuff out of pretty much nowhere. It is bad science, even if there were good things to be found in it. But you aren’t here because hate Freud,” he says.

Obviously not, he’s here to make sure Sam isn’t some kind of crazy person. Its bro code 101- make sure your bro isn’t dating a nut who might murder him and eat him for lunch the next day or some other screwed up thing. “I’m here because I’m not going to let Rhodey date some nut. I’m not about to find out we’re in the middle of a slasher plot too late.”

“And you chose therapy to do it?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow.

He squints, “its this more weird psychoanalysis shit? Because I already gave you my reasons.”

“And you’re a genius, I’m sure you figured out you could just have a conversation with my like a normal person. Or corner me elsewhere.”

Sure he could, but would that work out? Probably not. Here Sam’s trapped at the very least by workplace standards and also social convention. “So what’s your sure to be crazy theory with no evidence behind it,” he says in a tired voice, raising an eyebrow.

Sam considers him for a long moment. “My theory isn’t exactly baseless- your life _is_ public record and you _are_ kind of famous-” he starts but Tony cuts him off.

“Not exactly in the field of psychology,” he points out.

Sam smiles a little, “not really, no. But I have a degree in chemistry, and I dabbled in engineering. Obviously that means I’m familiar with your work given that you are one of the best engineers… _ever_. Plus if you know anything about psychology you are pretty fascinating to watch.”

“Like a hamster in a cage, nice,” Tony mumbles.

“Do you feel like a hamster in a cage?” he asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Seriously? You actually found meaning in that?”

Sam shrugs, “stands to reason a kid who’s been in and out of the public eye for his inventions, consistently watched not just because he’s a fantastic engineer, or even because he’s an omega, but because he’s both of those things at the same time might feel like an exhibit after awhile. You got stuck at the front of omega rights whether you wanted to be there or not by virtue of proving alphas theories that omegas are naturally bad at math and science so wrong almost no one can catch up with you let alone out do you. That has to be difficult, being in a position like that just because you exist the way you do,” Sam murmurs.

It’s almost not what he says, but how he says it. Like he genuinely believes that. Most people don’t, and he doesn’t mind being used as evidence to prove bad theories wrong, but it does become exhausting to be on a pedestal all the time. “Fine. I mean you aren’t wrong, but doesn’t anyone who gets asked to speak for an entire group get annoyed with that?”

“Sure. But most don’t get asked on the scale you do, and almost none of them have to deal with the public fallout of a misstep. You teeter to far one way or the other and you get torn to shreds for not fitting the image other people want right. An image, might I add, that doesn’t ever take into account who you are as a person. The position you’re in is another layer of dehumanization,” Sam says.

“Another layer?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, on top of being an omega. Don’t look so surprised; I have functioning senses, I know how omegas are treated. Its always seemed a little odd to me that they’re demonized for anything they do. You’re weak, you’re a spineless wimp who needs to grow a pair, but if you’re strong you’re a threat to alphas- near everything omegas do sits on those hard dichotomies. There’s nothing you can do that’s right, not in a culture that does its best to ensure you can’t get too comfortable,” he says.

Tony snorts, “yeah, ‘an alpha likes to feel like an alpha,’” he says, parroting the line he’s heard so many times for no other reason than having a fucking personality.

Sam shakes his head, “don’t see how having opinions stops an alpha from feeling like an alpha, and frankly if you need omegas to be subservient to you to feel like an alpha you aren’t very secure in your position as one but that’s just my opinion,” he mumbles, slipping from therapist mode for a moment.

“They don’t like it much when you point that out to them. Seriously, not like I’m stopping anyone from feeling like an alpha. If my presence makes you lesser imagine how I feel when everyone in the room _actually_ thinks I’m lesser despite being way smarter than them.” God, he hates how alphas like to take omega pain and try and twist it and appropriate it into their own like they were the real victims all along. Its insidious for one, and its insulting too. Its telling, he thinks, that omegas aren’t supposed to feel threatened when alphas have all the power be it higher paying jobs, more authority at home or in the community, a stronger personality, whatever. But the moment omegas have even _one_ of those things suddenly alphas are up in arms yelling about feeling dethroned, essentially.

“No they don’t,” Sam says. “They especially don’t like when you psychoanalyze why they feel threatened by an omega theoretically being an equal to them either.”

“Lovely, an alpha that speaks for omegas,” he says, offering Sam a slight sneer.

“More like a guy who recognizes the symptoms of a majority group who views equality as a threat. Ever seen one of those anti-omega ads? They all straight up reverse the positions of alphas an omegas in social roles. Which leads me to believe that alphas _know_ what they’re doing is wrong but they don’t want to lose their power. White people do the same, claiming crazy shit like race baiting and white genocide or some other dumb shit. No offense,” he says when he seems to belatedly realize Tony is white.

He shrugs, “no offense taken, I’ve seen enough people treat Rhodey differently than me to recognize racism is, in fact, a thing. And also I recognize the symptoms of a majority group claiming a certain problem doesn’t exist seemingly in an institutionalized gaslighting effort in an attempt to retain their social prowess.” Its all the same shit just repackaged with whatever brand of bullshit whomever is spouting. Once he figured that out racism got a whole lot less confusing and also a whole lot easier to recognize. Bless Rhodey for putting up with his dumb ass in the meantime though. But then he usually bought lunch so maybe he was in it for the food. He’d probably do the same if the food was good enough.

Sam raises an eyebrow, “gaslighting. That’s not something I’d expect someone to bring up on their own. Or in proper context like that either. Though I suppose you are familiar with abuse patterns.”

Tony squints, “how would you know that?” He’s not said anything to indicate he’s been abused in any way that isn’t normal for omegas.

“Tony, your life is public knowledge. To go back to our earlier discussion as to why I think you’re here I wonder if its because you know you need help, but every time you’ve reached out no one listened. And you’ve been all but _screaming_ for help since you figured out how to talk. Its shocking to me, and disturbing, how easily people brush off your comments about your father’s abuse. There’s a bunch of interviews you’ve done where people _laugh_. Its hard to watch, but to live through that?” Sam shakes his head. “That is horrible.”

“And that’s why I’m here? Because people don’t give a shit that Howard likes to use me as a punching bag? Or did, before I moved out.” Its been a long time, but he mostly avoids the mansion now and he’s never long enough to spark Howard’s hair trigger temper. He’s lucky he hasn’t been disowned but that’s probably because his grandfather favors him over Howard despite having a bunch of shitty opinions about omegas.

“No. You’re here, and this is just my interpretation, because this was a safe way to reach out without the risk of getting hurt. So what if I didn’t listen the way no one else ever has, you weren’t here for therapy, you were here to figure out whether or not I was some kind of psycho to potentially save your best friend some time in case I was. I think you chose _this_ method over literally any other more logical solution because you want to reach out, desperately, but people don’t listen to you when you do. And if I didn’t you had nothing to lose and you could tell Rhodey I was an ass.”

Well that’s an interesting and totally _wild_ theory for Tony’s actions. “You read too much into things,” he says.

Sam shrugs, “could be, I don’t actually know you, just the bits and pieces of you that you chose to show to the world. Which I suspect adds up to a rather elaborate lie that must be tiring to keep up.”

Yeah, he’s not wrong about that at all but Tony isn’t going to tell him that. No sense in in fueling his weird opinions of Tony’s psychology, it’d just encourage him to think up more baseless shit and Tony has better things to do.

Its not until Tony leaves that he realizes that Sam one hundred percent talked him into actual therapy and he’s mad about it even if he has to grudgingly admit that Sam isn’t a jackass. Doesn’t mean he’s good enough for Rhodey, but he’s not horrible either.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony is having a pleasant dream, pleasure licking its way up from the depths and he moans, hand twisting into hair as he blinks himself awake. “Bucky,” he murmurs, earning a small noise of affirmation before Bucky swallows him back down and Tony throws back his head, hand tightening his grip in Bucky’s long hair. “Shit, yeah, like that,” Tony tells him, breath picking up the pace as Bucky does. “God, you’re good,” he murmurs, biting his lip. Bucky’s grip on his hips tightens a little, a small indication of his feelings on the matter as he pulls back a little. Tony makes a small noise of frustration and pushes Bucky’s head back down, earning a half a laugh at that. Or at least Bucky attempts it anyway.

He moans when Bucky complies, “yeah, take it, baby,” Tony tells him, thrusting into Bucky’s mouth. Fuck, that’s good. He twists his other hand into Bucky’s hair, “Bucky,” he moans, “not gunna last- oh, _oh_.” He thrusts up one last time before Bucky pulls away, nipping at the inside of his thigh.

“Morning, gorgeous,” he says, grinning. Tony grins back, loopy and still sleepy.

“You have _got_ to find a better time for sex,” he tells him. “This morning sex thing is becoming a habit.”

Bucky nips at the inside of his thigh again, “but its fun to wake you up this way,” he says, pouting at Tony like that’ll make him change his mind.

It does, actually.

*

He takes way too long in the shower, attempting to wake himself up further because Bucky’s methods are only useful for a short amount of time. It doesn’t really work, the hot water mostly just makes him want to go back to bed, so he drags his ass out and dries off before wandering back into the bedroom to get clothes. Bucky, predictably, tracks his movements across the room and Tony rolls his eyes. “You already had you chance, I have class in an hour and a half.” Doesn’t leave him time to do much but eat and drink a cup of coffee in an attempt to wake himself up before he leaves.

“I’m sure I can work something out,” Bucky says and sure, Tony is too, but this particular teacher is an asshole about being on time so no.

“Save it for later,” Tony tells him as he pulls pants on. Bucky makes a displeased noise and yeah Tony doesn’t like clothing either but society dictates that humans in their birthday suits are illegal in public so pants it is.

“Come here,” Bucky murmurs and Tony sighs, pulling his shirt over his head and walking over. Bucky pulls him into his lap and kisses him soft and slow, arms circling around his waist as he draws him in close. Tony sighs into it, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck and enjoying it while it lasts. “You know I care about you, right?” he murmurs.

Yes, Tony does know that. He also knows that Bucky is in suck up mode. “I’m aware,” he says, “now let me up. I have to eat before I get stuck in class.” Bucky lets him go somewhat reluctantly, watching him go as he walks off into the kitchen before following the way he usually does.

He’s yawning and trying to determine what kind of food he wants from the fridge when Bucky curls an arm around his waist and moves him out of the way. “Rude,” Tony tells him as he sticks his head in the fridge. Steve watches the two of them skeptically, probably having been up for hours because he’s a freak who thinks the morning is an acceptable time to be awake, drinking coffee slowly. Since he made it and Bucky has decided to hog the fridge Tony goes over to the coffee pot.

“Hey, did you eat that potato salad?” he asks Tony, who snorts.

“Obviously. Never did like potato salad until Steve decided to make it,” he says. He feels the mood change in the room immediately and turns back to find Bucky glaring at Steve for literally no reason. He considers saying something, he probably _should_ , but he’s in a good mood and he doesn’t want to ruin it. Not when he knows that class is going to suck already.

Steve decides to ruin it anyway. “You two need to talk,” he tells them. This time Bucky isn’t alone when he glares at Steve. “Stop looking at me like that, you two can’t solve your problems with sex. I’m in love with Tony, fucking process it,” he tells Bucky in particular but Tony’s eyebrows fly up as Steve walks away.

“I’m kicking him out,” Bucky mumbles, sticking his head back in the fridge and Tony rolls his eyes.

“You are not. Steve can’t help his feelings and he hasn’t done dick all to act on them. You can’t give him the boot for feeling things,” Tony tells him. It isn’t fair and also Steve doesn’t have anywhere else to go at the moment.

“Well I don’t want him near you,” Bucky says and Tony prickles.

“Well _you_ don’t get to make that decision, and I don’t appreciate your weird fucking jealousy. I’m a person, not an egg you sit on and keep safe,” he snaps.

Bucky frowns at him, “and egg?” he asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“You get the damn point. _I_ get to decide who’s near me and who isn’t, not you. And you’re acting like a jackass.” He grabs the pot of coffee and stomps back to their room, slamming the door in Bucky’s face before he can follow. As _if_ Tony is going to let him in acting like that.

*

Rhodey probably feels _way_ too vindicated. “See I told you he was sketchy,” he says and Tony glares at him. “What? I knew this was going to go sour, I was right.” Maybe it’s not what Tony wants to hear- okay its definitely not what he wants to hear, but still.

“Sometimes you suck at best friend advice,” Tony mumbles and okay, that makes him feel bad a little so he sighs.

“What am I supposed to say? You did everything I would have told you to do anyways,” he points out. But Tony isn’t good at people stepping too far into his boundaries, when they get too close its natural for him to lash out. Sometimes in not so good ways but he hasn’t done anything drastic yet so there’s that.

Tony sighs, “yeah, okay. Fine. He’s being a fucking dick head for no reason though, and I don’t even get this Steve thing anyway- he doesn’t care about any other thing with him.” He rolls his eyes and Rhodey frowns.

“Didn’t you guys have a threesome?” He’s certain he remembers Tony mentioning that and being shocked and then amending that because Tony always does some kind of crazy shit so that’s not really out of character.

“Yeah- and it was _his_ idea _and_ it’s a habit they have so what the fuck?” he asks, shaking his head.

“Can you two talk about your threesomes _elsewhere_ ,” someone hisses from behind them. Rhodey half turns and sees some pretty white boy that looks vaguely familiar though it takes a moment to place him.

Tony decides to take matters into his own hands before Rhodey can say anything though and glares at the guy. “Did either of us ask for your opinion, Aryan Race? No? Then shut the fuck up.”

“You remember that one time on New Years and that guy tried hitting on you in the elevator and you abandoned him on the roof?” he asks and Tony’s eyes go wide.

“Oh, Probable Sociopath With A Complex!” he says and then turns to Killian. “I’d say you got hot but it kinda looks like you paid for it,” he says, cutting deep as always. Rhodey covers his mouth as he laughs and Killian turns the color of a cherry tomato.

“Keep talking like that and you might say something to the wrong person,” he mumbles under his breath but Tony hears it and turns back around.

He presses his hand to his heart and opens his eyes wide, “but Your Honor, he was _mean_ to me! That obviously gives me a right to maim him!” he says dramatically. “If you think that sounds fucking stupid congratulations, you got the damn point.” He rolls his eyes and turns back around. Rhodey really does admire the ease with which Tony brings people down- he’s graceful, like a gazelle. Except he’s got the teeth of a lion and a wicked fast brain. All admirable traits to Rhodey, who sucks at all things insult and also learned fast that risking it while black mostly isn’t worth it. Best to leave it to Tony- he’s better at it and avoids a lot more administrative backlash not that the principal’s office is much of a threat anymore but still. He’s used to leaving it to Tony by now and it really is a wonder to watch.

“You are such an arrogant little prick,” Killian hisses, “I have no idea why any alpha even thinks you’re worth enough to be jealous over.”

Tony makes a face, half looking at Killian over his shoulder, “calm _down_ Blue Eyes White Dragon, its not that deep.” Dismissive and harsh and from the looks of it Killian doesn’t like that too much but Tony has already lifted his hand up to keep him from talking. “Please refrain from speaking, you’ve taken up far too much of my air already. So Rhodes, what the fuck?” he asks, jumping back into their previous conversation.

Normally Rhodey would tell him something else is clearly going on but on account of not liking Bucky and being the only one who’s left willing to get _rid_ of this guy he offers different advice. “Dump him. Sounds like a real dick.”

“Over _one_ thing? Seems a bit harsh,” he points out.

“I mean, creepy unnecessary jealousy and trying to control who you can and cannot talk to is two things, and they’re kind of big things,” he points out.

Tony sighs and sits back in his seat because he knows Rhodey is right but he’s not going to listen because no one can tell Tony nothin’, he mostly figures out whoever was right in hindsight and apologizes for not listening. Rhodey only has to wait it out.

Class starts and they slog their way through shitty presentations that make Rhodey want to pull his eyes out but Sam text so at least he’s got some entertainment in the meantime. He’s smart enough that he doesn’t really need to pay attention anyway- he already knows more about the subjects his classmates are presenting than them and there’s like seven things per presentation he could correct. He doesn’t though because its not worth his time to argue with a bunch of people who already think he knows less because he’s an omega and Tony is better at arguing too and he can’t _stand_ when people butcher his field of study so he knows that he’ll correct the stuff that’s wrong to begin with. Which doesn’t sit well with the teacher or the students but whatever. Its not as if Tony is wrong.

By the time it gets to Tony’s turn Rhodey is grateful because he knows there won’t be anything to correct and also Tony is funny and it leaks into everything he does, presentations included. So at least this won’t be boring.

Of course he’s right for a whole bunch of different reasons. Tony is setting up the power point when the teacher glares at him; Rhodey can’t remember his name, some Russian shit. But he’s had it out for Tony since day one on account of Howard ruining his father’s career, which led to Tony casually calling him Snivillus Snape, which he _really_ didn’t like, but he’d earned it so. Granted, that doesn’t mean he anticipates his next attempt to ruin Tony’s grades.

“What is that?” he asks and Tony frowns, looking at the computer.

“A power point? We’ve seen like ten examples of what not to do with them today,” he says sarcastically and the class laughs a little.

“I meant on your neck, smart ass,” the teacher- _Vanko_!- says.

Tony frowns, bless him, and it takes several moments for the implication to sink in. Rhodey loves him but sometimes he’s a fucking idiot considering he’s a genius. “A claim- is this relevant?” he asks, fingers drifting over the barely visible bite that’s honestly almost on his shoulder its so low. And frankly unless someone points it out its hard to see anyway. Took Rhodey nearly two months to notice and he’s been inspecting Tony for damage the whole time so what the hell?

“Its distracting,” Vanko says and Tony’s eyes narrow.

“Distracting,” he repeats. “To _whom_? And again, why is this relevant? I can’t help small wandering minds.” Ouch, that’s harsh, but kind of true.

“Its unprofessional,” Vanko says, sneering a bit and Tony squints at him like he’s an idiot. Rhodey swears he’s the only one even ballsy enough to try that given that Vanko is the head of the department.

“Well that’s some blatantly anti- omega bullshit,” Tony says, cutting to the chase.

“It applies to everyone, it has nothing to do with omegas,” Vanko says and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Oh, but the fact that its mostly only omegas that _have_ claim bites is a total coincidence, then? No idiot would make a rule like that not knowing that ahead of time so drop the pretenses. I could ban nasty ass baby shit green sweater vests and it applies to everyone in this room but we all know I’m targeting you specifically,” he says and Rhodey slaps his hand over his mouth to keep from laughing out loud at that. The rest of the class doesn’t have the same amount of self control and those that don’t laugh let out a soft ‘ooooo’.

“Get out of my class room,” Vanko says and Tony raises an eyebrow.

“Are you really telling me this claim bite is more important than thirty five percent of my grade?” he asks.

“Your attitude is what got you kicked out, stop playing the victim,” Vanko tells him.

Tony rolls his eyes, “sure, act like that’s _not_ what just happened here, okay. Guess we’ll see what the Dean has to say,” he says, walking out of the room with purpose. Rhodey shakes his head because he almost feels bad for Vanko- he has no idea what he just tangled with and Tony is a formidable opponent. He’s not going to win this.

*

Tony comes home in a worse mood than what he left in and finds Steve sketching stuff in his room, which the poor bastard also has to share with Tony’s lab stuff. There isn’t much, but there’s enough to distract him sufficiently and he got an idea for a new design in class while his classmates were doing their best to try and knock IQ points out of his brain. Steve looks up and smiles when he sees him and Tony notices Bucky is nowhere to be found. He frowns when he sees the look on Tony’s face though, “what’s wrong? I mean, aside from the Bucky thing.”

Perceptive. Tony sighs and runs through his day, which results in an impressive face journey on Steve’s end, until he cumulates it with coming home. “Your teacher sounds like a total _douchebag_ ,” he says.

Tony shrugs, “whatever. I have three years of solid proof that he’s been trying to fuck me over anyway and I dropped it all on the school today so he’s probably going to get fired. Schools don’t tend to like when kids who’s parents donate stupid amounts of money get pissed off.” Not really a power he likes using but it comes in handy now.

Steve raises an eyebrow, “and you waited until now?”

“Yeah, I was in a bad mood. He really should learn not to piss off someone smarter than him.” Any other time he might have let it go or at least only complained about that _one_ thing but he was pissed off and got a little trigger happy and dropped everything, including a shit ton of emails to state his case. Not like anyone can deny shit with written proof so _ha_.

“You decided to get your teacher fired because you were in a bad mood?” Steve asks.

“What? He deserved it anyway, its not like I made shit up.”

“That’s not what I was getting at- sounds more like you should have gotten him fired on account of not doing his damn job and also discrimination but okay, you _do_ do things weirdly. Part of your appeal, honestly,” he says and it’s the first time he’s ever really said anything that overtly states his interest.

He considers it for a moment, and Steve gives him the space to do so purposefully at that, before he speaks. “Why not say anything sooner?”

Steve shrugs, “because I knew Bucky would act like an ape,” he says and its just _so_ bluntly stated that Tony can’t help but burst out laughing.

“I mean, yeah, kinda. And of course this has to be the _one_ time you don’t know what his deal is,” he says, shaking his head. He considers brainstorming that but nixes it fast and decides to change the subject instead. “So, what are you drawing?” he asks and Steve turns bright red.

He hugs his sketch pad to his chest, “uh, nothing,” he mumbles.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “oh no, you look like you’re trying to rapidly evolve into a tomato I want to see it,” he says, waving a hand out for the sketch pad.

Steve considers not handing it over for a few moments, clearly mortified, but that really only makes Tony more curious and he must sense that so he hands it over. “I want you to remember that you asked for this, and also that it means nothing,” he says.

He’s sure he has no idea what that means at least until he takes a look at the drawing. “There’s uh… a lot to unpack here,” he says eventually.

“You asked,” Steve mumbles.

“Didn’t take you for the kinky type, you look too much like you grew up in the Midwest.” Of course he grew up in Brooklyn, which Steve reiterates, but still. “I’m wearing a collar,” he says eventually. And he’s poised on his knees, head bowed. Its actually a stunning drawing but also not… not what he expected to see. He thought he’d end up with some weird embarrassing shit, not something that’s a vague turn on.

Steve avoids all eye contact like the plague at least until Tony starts flipping pages, then he all but launches himself off of the bed he’d been sitting on and at the sketch pad. Tony hands it over because damn, okay, if he’s _that_ concerned about it he can take it back. “Sorry there’s a lot of- um, people don’t usually- its uh-”

“NSFW?” Tony asks and Steve turns an even deeper shade of red.

“I never should have handed this over,” he whispers.

Tony could be skeeved out, normally would be actually, if not for the sheer amount of embarrassment on Steve’s features. Its pretty obvious that whatever he draws he knows its his own fantasies, not some weird extension of shit Tony would actually do.

The fact that he would is probably more coincidence than anything. “You ever actually tried any of that stuff? Kinky shit?” he asks.

Steve shrugs, “some. Bucky doesn’t really know much about it.”

Bucky, like a best friend normally knows that type of thing anyway. Well, okay, maybe they do Rhodey knows enough that if they ever stop being friends Tony may have to kill him but still. “Huh. Well, there’s a thought.”

Or it would be if Bucky weren’t acting like a rusty fucking paper clip.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a Short Boi, but discussions happen!

Bucky tries to curl an arm around Tony’s waist and he smacks him away. Bucky makes a small, pained noise but Tony is done with his irritating behavior- behavior that’s a little too fucking familiar to him. But he’s not going to take Rhodey’s advice because it is _painfully_ obvious that this kind of jealousy isn’t native to Bucky. Tony knows what unhealthy jealousy is and this is more fear of… something, but he has no idea what. “Tony,” Bucky murmurs, reaching out again and Tony smacks his hand away again. He doesn’t reach out again.

He considers letting Bucky stew in it, but he’s stewed in it long enough so Tony flips over. He must have some kind of look on his face because Bucky winces and looks away immediately. “I’m done with this cycle- I’ve been done with this cycle since long before I met you. You don’t get to kiss up until you get pissed off again only to run in another fucking circle. I know something’s bothering you about this, Steve’s feelings, but they’re _feelings_ , ones he’s had for months and _nothing_ has happened. Whatever it is you’re afraid of obviously isn’t going to happen,” he says softly.

This time when Bucky comes to him he lets him, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he presses his face into Tony’s chest. “Honey, whatever it is you can tell me,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head. Bucky keeps his head pressed to Tony’s chest for a long time before he sighs softly.

“Tony,” Bucky murmurs and he sighs.

“Buck,” Tony says softly, “why the hell are you so pissed off about this? I… I get there being a limit somewhere or whatever, but its kind of confusing when you don’t have any limits with Steve any other time and then _feelings_ somehow cross a boundary. Not actions, _feelings_. Feelings no one, _especially_ not Steve, has acted on. I don’t understand why that has you so on edge.” I’d be different if there was real reason for Bucky to think Steve might genuinely try and make a move, even if his anger shouldn’t be directed towards Tony at that point, but there isn’t. Minus some sad forlorn looks and a sketch book of drawings of Tony there’s really no indication Steve has any kind of romantic feelings towards him let alone enough to make him a threat to their relationship in any manner.

He gives Bucky a long time to think, to gather his thoughts before he speaks, petting his hair as he does so. Finally Bucky sighs and pulls away. “People like Steve better than me,” he says softly.

Tony frowns and laughs a little because that… makes no sense. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asks.

His response must surprise Bucky because he looks confused but he sighs and tries again. “My whole life people have liked Steve better than me. I’m a good time; he’s something you bring home to your parents.”

“Yeah, well I hate my parents so that’s not a concern. And Steve isn’t… my type. I mean, not that I don’t care about him, or that I couldn’t, but that spark I had with you right away? Not the kind of thing that would happen with Steve. It didn’t happen, actually. Took me a long time to even like him.” Bucky frowns and Tony laughs, “what? I wasn’t going to tell you I didn’t like your best friend. I mean, he grew on me so I like him now but in the beginning… kinda reminds me of those self righteous people who can be cruel, but they’ll use any selfless, supposedly justified reason to explain away their cruelty away- explain why their victim deserved it no matter how little they actually did. Set me on edge, still would if it didn’t seem that Steve is aware of that and actively tries to curb it.” He suspects there was something Steve did in his past that made him aware of that rather large character flaw so he tempers it now.

For a long moment Bucky just _stares_ and that’s weird sure but it’s the totally stunned look on his face that makes it weirder. Eventually he raises an eyebrow and Bucky shakes his head, looking away. “Sorry its just… I mean I know that about Steve, kind of hard not to after spending so much time with him, but no one else- and I mean _no one else_ \- has ever seen that before.”

Tony shrugs, “I’ve met people like that, I know the signs. Point is Steve, I like him, but we will _never_ have the kind of connection I have with you. You think you’re fucked up, broken somehow and that makes you unworthy of love, or maybe that people can’t love all the pieces. I don’t care if you’re broken though, or how many pieces I need to love. I made my choice when I decided to be with you,” he tells Bucky.

Bucky presses his face back into his chest and he sighs, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair again. “You didn’t like Steve?” he asks after a long while and Tony laughs a little.

“Not especially, no. I mean sure, he’s hot, and a good lay, but personality wise? Too many things about him rubbed me the wrong way until I got to know him better. If we met under different circumstances I’m pretty sure we’d hate each other.” Steve really is the overly righteous type and until Tony got to know some of the deeper reasons behind it he probably would have written him off as an overly eager do-gooder with no concept of grey areas in morality. Thanks to the way they met though, and the ensuring circumstances Tony learned to look past that and clearly Steve liked what he saw on Tony’s end.

“Well, he’s in love with you now,” Bucky mumbles, clearly irritated.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t mean anything will come of it,” he points out.

“And what if something did?” Bucky asks, lifting his head to look at Tony. Might sound petty, stupid, but Tony can see how genuinely worried Bucky is about that. He’ll ask Steve later about it given that, at least from Steve’s perspective, Bucky is the one who doesn’t have a problem attracting relationships. So why would _Bucky_ be the self conscious one?

“So what if it did? Emotions aren’t a zero sum, even if I _did_ develop some kind of romantic attachment to Steve that doesn’t mean that my feelings for you would fall out my ass or something. Besides, the way you two act I’m kind of surprised you two haven’t shared a relationship. Its like the only thing you _haven’t_ shared,” he says. To make things more confusing Bucky doesn’t seem to draw any kind of line around sex, which people like to link to relationships anyway so its kind of like he’s already half on board with the idea to begin with. Obviously sex isn’t everything, or even most of a relationship, but they do tend to go hand in hand.

Something he says makes Bucky frown and Tony lets him think on that for a moment. “Actually it is kind of weird that we’ve never shared a relationship. But whenever we date people they tend to get pissed off that we care more about each other than them so maybe that’s why.”

Its pretty much what Steve said too. “Actually, they were jealous that you two were so close and saw that as a threat to your relationship but whatever. Still, its painfully obvious that you two don’t come one without the other. Steve’s feelings are sort of a natural extension of that and trust me he’s been very polite.” Drawings aside he didn’t say anything at all about his interest until after Tony already knew about it. “You know his not saying anything until you figured out how he felt means he was willing to ignore how he felt out of respect for you and our relationship, right? You should give him a bit of credit for that.”

“He never said anything?” Bucky asks and Tony shakes his head.

“I’m not a moron so I saw his interest, but no. He didn’t say anything until after you figured him out. Seems like he figured out your weird boundary thing before you did.”

Bucky frowns, “actually, I think that’s more because that’s not something we’ve ever done before, dated the same person. Pretty sure no one we’ve ever dated would have been fine with that though so,” he shrugs. “Kind of seems like you expected that, though.”

Tony laughs, “yeah, I mean, I’m fine with this and I always will be but I wondered if that’s where this would end up anyway. You’re inseparable from Steve in almost every other way, it seemed reasonable to me that this would be another way you two would end up tangled in each other’s shit. Imagine my surprise when you off and acted like a total jackass about it,” he says, shaking his head.

That earns him a small sigh. “Yeah, I did act like a total jackass. I’m sorry, none of this shit is your fault, or Steve’s fault really,” he murmurs.

“No its fine, we can blame Steve,” Tony says and Bucky laughs a little. “Your worry that he’s the more viable partner though, its not true. You both have your merits but there’s a reason I’m with _you_.”

Bucky considers that for a moment and lets out a soft huff of air, “its just that Steve always has his shit together, and he’s less… moody, I guess. And more presentable.”

Tony rolls his eyes, “he looks like a corn fed farmer from the mid-west and he acts like he was raised by Catholics. That is _so_ not what I’d look for in a partner like… _ever_. I like that you have an emotional range that isn’t three speeds of vague stoicism and I _like_ that you kind of look like a bad boy but you thankfully lack all the shitty toxic crap that comes with them, and I like what we have together.”

“But you expected to be with both of us, though. How’s that work?” Bucky asks.

Fair question, Tony supposes. “I had to work to care about Steve, for your sake, but with you it comes naturally,” he says honestly. The small, pleased smile on Bucky’s face is worth it too, worth convincing him that Tony isn’t going anywhere, Steve or no Steve.

“Steve was raise by Catholics, his family’s Irish,” he says and Tony snorts and starts laughing.

“Go figure. Catholic churches are made to fuck in, you don’t make cathedrals that dramatic and not fuck in them, but the damn Catholics squander them,” he says, shaking his head.

Bucky starts laughing, “ _what_?” he asks, shaking his head.

“I said what I said,” Tony tells him.

*

Thankfully when Steve hands him a cup of coffee Bucky doesn’t act all pissed off about it even if he does linger on the action more than he should. But his lack of anger might be because Steve is currently wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat indoors for some reason.

“What’s with the uh… fashion choice?” Bucky asks, gesturing to Steve’s face.

“Yeah, little unibomber chic,” Tony adds and Bucky starts laughing. Steve doesn’t look impressed but Bucky doubles over wheezing until he stops making noise entirely.

“I have a hangover. I miss being young,” he mumbles.

“So, drinking to forget anything?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“Well, hopefully my feelings for you but then I ended up crying on my sketch book at two a.m so clearly that was a bust. Now my brain is trying to escape my cranium and run into traffic and Bucky seriously, looking like the unibomber is _not_ that funny,” Steve tells him with a totally straight face. Tony starts laughing too, because that’s hilarious phrased like that. Steve shakes his head. “You two are horrible, I don’t love either of you anymore,” he mumbles, walking away with his coffee.

“He fucking _does_ look exactly like that unibomber sketch,” Bucky wheezes out.

Tony nods and regains control of himself a little, “yeah he does. You should talk to him though, after he stops whining about his own bad decisions coming back to bite him in the ass in the morning.”

Bucky makes a face and Tony gives him a _look_ so he sighs. “What am I supposed to say?” he asks.

“What you told me. And figure out what to do with his feelings, or not to do. And don’t come home drunk and expect me to take care of you, and _definitely_ don’t show up the next morning looking like twin bombers expecting coffee. I _will_ drink it all,” he warns.

Bucky continues to look like he’s swallowed a lemon and sighs. “How come I have to like… deal with things?” he mumbles.

Tony grins, “pro tip, I’m very against talking about anything ever unless its actively inconveniencing me so really, you did this to yourself when you threw several hissy fits. Otherwise I would have ignored any and all feelings forever,” he says, shrugging.

Bucky goes from looking like he’s swallowed _a_ lemon to looking like he’s swallowed a whole _tree_ of lemons. Serves him right for being a jerk.


	6. Chapter 6

Bucky finds Steve curled up on his bed around no less than three of Tony’s projects and that’s love. Bucky would have thrown them on the floor. Machines can be fixed and Tony’s extra good at it, fuck trying to sleep _around_ them. Makes him wonder if Tony would prefer Steve’s method over his, which he knows will only lead to a downward spiral of ‘what if he likes Steve better than me’ that he now _knows_ is irrelevant but its hard to drop almost half his life’s worth of habit.

He throws a magnet at Steve and the blankets shift a little. He throws another one and gets an annoyed mumble so he throws a third one at the space he’s pretty sure Steve’s head is hiding. “That’s my _face_ asshole,” Steve mumbles and Bucky shrugs.

“Then get out from under the blankets you dumb fucker. You _know_ you don’t handle alcohol well why would you go get drunk?” Sure, he outgrew most of his health issues but he didn’t outgrow all of them and the colitis tends to make things complicated.

“Why would you go an alienate yourself from your own damn relationship when its obvious Tony is in love with you and tolerates me? We do dumb shit,” Steve mumbles. Bucky whips another magnet at Steve’s general face area and he finally pulls the blankets off and grabs one of the near by magnets, whipping it back at Bucky. He deflects the magnet before it hits his face and it sticks to his metal arm. He resents that, really.

“You know what, I was worried okay- everyone has always liked you better than me. Your drinking is just stupid,” he says.

Steve pulls the blankets out further and pulls his glasses off just so he can properly give Bucky a ‘what the fuck’ look. “What are you talking about? You’re the one always getting dates that actually result in them calling you back. You’re so damn good at finding people who are into you Tony literally walked up to you on the street. What do you mean people like _me_ better? That’s never been true.”

Bucky frowns, “has _so_. You’re the nicer one, the more put together one, the more moral one- you’ve always been my better half. S’not really surprising that everyone else seems to see it too.”

His words obviously don’t clarify anything for Steve because he still looks confused. “You were the more confident one until you lost your arm, and you’ve always been better with relationships, and sure people like me just fine but _you’re_ the more interesting one. What are you _on_ about?” he asks, obviously baffled.

For a long moment they stare at each other before Bucky sighs, “what the fuck? How is it possible that we hold the same opinion of the other and didn’t know about it and- wait, if you seem to think I’m the better one how come you don’t seem um… threatened by me?” he asks even though he thinks that’s a stupid way to put it. He’s not _threatened_ by Steve, he’s just worried Tony will realize he downgraded and go for the first immediate upgrade in the area. Makes sense- Steve is a great guy; Bucky would date him himself if their relationship was just too platonic to get past. You don’t see a man shit his pants in the third grade, concoct a story that leaves someone else responsible for the mess, help him clean himself up, and then develop romantic feelings for the guy. It’s just not possible.

“Because I’m not a god damn meathead fighting over an omega like the poor thing is a piece of meat instead of a whole person capable of making their own choices, for one. And also I’ve known you my whole life, we’ve shared basically everything and that’s never been a problem. Even when he _have_ run into problems we worked them out fine so why would I think this is different?” he asks.

Okay, Bucky isn’t a meathead either and he knows Tony can make his own choices its just that he’s worried that choice won’t be him. In hindsight he acted like a real dick about it but still. “Yeah, but like… you’re not worried he’d chose me over you?” he asks and Steve rolls his eyes.

“He already _did_ , dumbass. So no, that’s not something I was concerned about and you two were happy so I never would have said anything anyway. But then you noticed, and Tony apparently knew the whole time, and then you started acting like a fucking _Neanderthal_ for some reason and it all went to hell.”

That wouldn’t have been how Bucky thought about it but that’s a good point, that Tony clearly already made his choice. “You didn’t really express interest for him to actually _make_ much of a choice though,” Bucky points out.

Steve rolls his eyes, “being with you was enough to give a guy a hint. And its not like he’s shown any interest _despite_ knowing about mine the whole damn time. You kind of have a low opinion of Tony if you think he’d cheat on you just because someone in the immediate area thinks he’s relationship material. Which, by the way, is basically everyone. The guy is hot and he’s got one of those personalities that draws people in. Get used to it,” he says like Bucky isn’t already used to it. Tony’s personality drew him in too.

“I do not have a low opinion of Tony,” he mumbles though because that’s rude.

“Do so- you can’t act like Tony will off and cheat on you at a moments notice and have a _positive_ opinion of him. If you don’t like hearing that maybe stop projecting your personal insecurities onto him and get over yourself. Seriously Bucky, what the fuck?” he asks, waving a hand around a little. Looks ridiculous when its barely been freed of the blanket its mostly trapped in but still.

“I like you better when you’re yelling at someone else,” he mumbles.

“Stop acting like a jackass and maybe I’ll go back to that,” Steve counters.

*

When Tony gets home he thankfully finds the noise of people speaking so clearly Bucky actually went and talked to Steve. He makes his way through the apartment and locates Bucky and Steve in his lab space and immediately decides to take back his happiness on them talking. Poor Steve is huddled under the blankets with Bucky on top of him shaking him while yelling, “why are you sleeping!” and Tony has little to offer here but a small sigh.

“I will throw up on _everything_ you love,” Steve warns him.

“Yeah, but will you throw up on stuff _Tony_ loves? Because there’s a bunch of stuff in here that’s his,” Bucky points out in a thankfully teasing tone that feels like the way he’d talk to Steve before he blew a gasket over nothing.

He continues to watch from the door way as Steve lets out a long, thin groan and Bucky goes back to shaking him. “Why are you sleeping?” he asks, shaking Steve again. Bless Steve for doing little more than taking it because Tony would have smacked the shit out of Bucky if he tried that on him. When Steve doesn’t react Bucky shakes him some more.

“Do I need to get you a bad Bucky spray bottle? Leave the poor man alone,” Tony tells him. Bucky jumps a little, turning to face the doorway and Steve pulls the blankets down just below his eyes.

“My hero,” he mumbles and Bucky yanks the blanket back over his head.

“Shush,” he tells Steve, “and no I don’t need a squirt bottle. That’s weird.”

“Then leave Steve be,” Tony tells him. Bucky gives the lump of Steve under him a last forlorn glance but shifts off of him, throwing himself down beside Steve instead. Tony shakes his head and walks over, crawling onto the bed and wedging himself between Steve and Bucky for warmth. “So I take it you two came to some kind of conclusion?” he asks.

Under the blankets Steve snorts, “yeah, we concluded that Bucky has been drinking Kool Aid.”

“They drank Flavor Aid, not Kool Aid,” Bucky says and Tony frowns.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asks, looking between the two not that Steve can see it.

“Jonestown, obviously. Come on, you’re not _that_ young,” Steve says, poking his head out of the blankets, half turned towards him.

Tony frowns, “do people just reference cults in random conversations like that?” he asks. Because the only time he’s ever heard anyone reference Kool Aid, which in hindsight should have been a clue, is if they want to die before exams. Which is near every student he’s ever met. Himself included.

“Yes,” Bucky says, looking a little pained when he says it and Steve laughs.

“Told you this would come back to haunt you,” he sing songs.

“Keep your mouth shut, I paid you off!” Bucky hisses at him.

“I’ll pay you ten times what he did,” Tony says immediately.

Steve swears under his breath, “that’s not much incentive, Bucky only gave me five bucks.”

Tony squints, “ _that’s_ supposed to keep him quiet? Steve, that’s a terrible deal tell me what he told you to keep quiet,” he says, poking Steve in the side.

“If you open your yap I will spill _every_ embarrassing secret you have,” Bucky tells him, propping himself up on his elbow to properly glare down at Steve over Tony.

Tony pushes him back, “don’t listen to him he’s a fool tell me what this means. I won’t stop bugging you until you spill it so you might as well bite the bullet,” he says. And he’s been reliably informed that he’s a right pain in the ass when he gets ahold of an idea.

“Yeah, Bucky’s totally been pretending to be normal. He isn’t- he cried at a Taylor Swift concert last year and he thinks conspiracy theories are fun to look up, which extends to an interest in cults and other weird shit,” Steve says and Bucky pulls a magnet off his arm- wait, when, no, _how_ , did that get there?- and throws it at Steve full force. Steve yelps as the magnet bounces off of him.

“He was going to find out eventually!” he says in his defense.

“I paid you cash money to keep your mouth shut you damn traitor! Would you sell out the country as fast?” he asks and Tony frowns.

“Hold up, how’d this turn into _treason_?” he asks, knowing he’s missed a few things that can only be explained by years of experience with the other.

“We briefly worked in intelligence and no, probably not unless I had a good reason and there isn’t even a good reason for Tony not to know about your weird interests. Its not like he doesn’t have his own, have you seen the weird stuff he Googles at three in the morning?” Steve asks.

No, because Bucky is asleep at that time like a normal human, which he tells Steve, but Tony is caught up on them apparently working in intelligence because _what_? And do they know anyone he knows? The two bicker back and forth before Tony holds up his hand, “okay time out, do you know Nick Fury?” he asks and, because he knows them both well, knows the answer to that immediately. Holy shit- they didn’t just work for intelligence, they worked for intelligence so secret the _president_ is on a need to know basis.

“ _You_ know Nick Fury?” Bucky asks eventually, once he gets past being dumbfounded at hearing the name.

Tony shrugs, “I um, invent cool stuff. We talk.” Also, before her untimely fall to Alzheimer’s his aunt Peggy had introduced them. It just so happened that Fury took a liking to him and ended up preferring him to his grandfather and father. They don’t talk much, but Tony knows a few signals if Fury needs to find him somewhere. And the man is a Luddite- refuses to be around any technology if he’s got sensitive information on hand. Claims people are a lot easier to get rid of than email trails not that Tony believes that. Governments have lost plenty of paperwork, literal and digital, never to be found again but he lets Fury have his neurotic control over who hears what.

Steve and Bucky remain silent for a long few moments still, clearly shocked by the information. “Bucky doesn’t believe in the moon,” he says and Tony shakes his head, extracting himself from between Bucky and Steve’s bodies immediately because there is only so much a man can handle and that took his limits and dry humped them right over a cliff into a bunch of cacti.

“I do so believe in the moon I just think people who don’t believe in the moon are fascinating baby come _back_!” Bucky says, hooking an arm around his waist and dragging him back into bed.

“He doesn’t believe in Australia either,” Steve says and Tony starts wiggling for freedom again.

*

Tony and Rhodey watch Bucky and Sam with confused looks on their faces. “Why are they doing that cobra thing?” he asks.

“Cobra thing?” Steve asks, frowning.

Tony nods, “yeah, you know, when alphas are getting ready to beat the hell out of each other they do that thing where they circle each other a couple times leaning forward and back like some kind of fucked up snake,” he says.

Steve’s eyebrows draw together, “we _do_ do that,” he murmurs and Tony knows. He’s seen alphas do it so many times he has to wonder what the hell kind of socialization is happening to make them think this is a normal thing to do.

“You know, we talk a lot of shit about weird alpha habits but omegas have to have weird habits too. What weird shit do we do?” Rhodey asks.

Tony shrugs, “care about alpha’s opinions of our bodies to much we get eating disorders?”

Rhodey winces, “okay, yeah that’s messed up. I was looking for quirky like the cobra thing, not that but okay.”

“You guys have a weird habit of never telling anyone why you’re angry and also denying that you’re angry angrily. I don’t get that,” Steve says.

“We admit to why we’re pissed off we’re nags who expect too much, we express our anger we’re neurotic for doing so despite the fact that alphas can get angry without any repercussions, we try and talk about it and alphas claim we’re overemotional or overinvested in something, then we gaslit because why are you so angry to begin with that doesn’t matter,” Tony says in a mocking voice. “Basically, there’s no right way for an omega to be angry without suffering for it. Barring any of those explanations we are prone to do dumb shit like everyone else.”

“We care a _lot_ about hair,” Rhodey says. “A lot. Its just hair though, no need to be obsessed with it.”

“Pry my hair out of my cold, dead hands, Rhodes,” Tony tells him.

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “yeah, this one cares so much about hair he figured out how to take care of natural hair just because he didn’t want me to cut _my_ hair,” he says to Steve, who laughs.

“Your hair is fun to play with, leave a man be,” he says. Steve gives him a strange look but Rhodey chimes in before he can get any ideas.

“Its not a weird white people trying to pet black people hair thing, its just a weird habit Tony developed after he figured out how to take care of my hair. He doesn’t try that shit with other people,” he says and Tony frowns.

“Wait, what the fuck do you mean ‘white people petting black people hair’ thing? White people do _what_?” he asks.

“Case and point, apparently he didn’t even know that this was a thing. Yeah, the melanin deficient _do_ have a weird thing for natural hair. Shrinkage is magic to your people,” he says.

Tony squints, “but like… they _pet_ people? Like on the street?”

“Sometimes,” Rhodey says, “but I find it happens more at parties. Might be because of my age though,” he reasons and Tony shakes his head because that is _wild_ to him.

“Pet them back, tell them they’re soft like bunnies. Watch how fucking uncomfortable they get with that,” he says. Simple solution- he does stuff like that to alphas all the time. They start yelling vulgar shit on the street? He yells at them to whip out their junk so he can inspect. So far every single one he’s tried that on has straight up run away. He figures the solution will work for black people too.

“I hate you,” Sam says and they all turn back to Bucky and Sam, who are still doing the cobra thing. Rhodey frowns and Tony figures this must be strange behavior for him if Rhodey looks so confused.

“I hope you die in a fiery car crash,” Bucky says and Tony’s eyebrows shoot up.

“Is this the result of his acting like a jackass lately?” Rhodey asks and Tony shakes his head.

“No, turns out he has low self esteem and has since realized taking it out on me is a stupid idea. This… is something else.”

Sam’s eyes narrow, “I hope you’re the one who causes it so your family has to live with the fact that they’re related to a murderer,” he says and Rhodey’s jaw drops. Even Steve looks surprised with that and Bucky looks straight up offended.

“We got cocky with Steve and Bucky, we need to go back to Beta Fish Rules,” Tony tells Rhodey, who nods.

Steve frowns, “beta fish rules?” he asks.

Rhodey nods, “yeah. You don’t stick two males in the same tank because they’ll fight it out. Except replace males with alphas because if you stick too many of you guys in the same space you start doing the cobra thing and beating the hell out of each other and throwing each other into things and breaking stuff,” he says.

“Explains why the government is so shit,” Tony mumbles and Rhodey snorts and starts laughing.

To his credit Steve looks horrified. “Sam, Bucky, stop this goddamn nonsense omegas are starting to treat us like _fish_ we’re acting so foolish,” he says, walking over to disrupt the cobra dance.


	7. Chapter 7

Bucky looks confused and Tony crosses his arms over his chest. Bucky sighs and loops an arm around his waist, “I’m sorry baby, I don’t know what came over me. It was hate at first sight. You’re running a little hot,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to Tony’s temple.

“You can’t just hate people on sight, Bucky, and Sam’s decent,” he says. Rhodey has described a few dates with him and he doesn’t seem suspicious yet. Tony has another therapy appointment to scope him out. An hour of uninterrupted time to hopefully not get psychoanalyzed like last time.

“Maybe you should worry about your fever, you really do feel warm,” Bucky murmurs and across the kitchen Steve’s eyes all but bug out of his head.

“Bucky, you stupid slut, he’s going into heat. Do you not keep track?” he asks and Tony frowns because _he_ doesn’t bother to keep track.

He wrinkles his nose, “I swear I just got it yesterday what the fuck,” he mumbles.

“Twenty five days- your cycle is like clockwork do _you_ not keep track?” Steve asks and Tony shrugs.

“Its comes when it comes,” he says.

Steve presses his fingers to his temples, “you two would die without me,” he tells them. “Bucky go get groceries.”

Bucky’s eyebrows draw together, “groceries?”

He gets another _look_ from Steve, “because omegas need extra calories when- for fucks sakes do you two know anything about his biology?” he asks, gesturing to Tony.

“Well, pretty sure Tony knows more than you,” Bucky says in his defense.

“He doesn’t even know when he goes into heat and its not like it sits on a weird schedule,” Steve says. “Seriously, what the hell?” he asks Tony.

“What? I don’t feel the need to keep track, which doesn’t mean I’m ignorant to my biology it just means I wish it’d fuck off,” he says. Bucky snickers and Steve rubs his temples again. While Steve clearly contemplates how to proceed Bucky sniffs him and Tony waves him off. “Do you mind?” he asks.

“You don’t smell like you’re going into heat,” he says and Steve rolls his eyes.

“He won’t smell like anything until tomorrow, genius,” he mumbles.

Tony frowns, “its really creepy that you know all this stuff,” he says. _How_ does he know all this stuff? What reason would he have to keep track of any of these things given that Tony’s heat hardly affects him?

“Keeping track of weird health stuff is a habit of mine, I do it with everyone. If you want I can give you an embarrassingly long list of every shitty habit Bucky has,” he says and right, yeah, he has mentioned his previous health issues a few times. Makes sense he’d learn to pick up on other people’s health things.

“List a single habit and I will throw you out a window,” Bucky tells him.

“List all of them,” Tony says, curious now. Bucky glares at Steve, who looks at Tony. “Just remember, you love me, not Bucky,” he says and Bucky makes an offended noise.

“He does so love me!”

“Well he loves me more, tell me all of Bucky’s bad habits,” he says gleefully.

“I don’t love either of you,” Steve says, technically solving the argument as he leaves the room fast, reminding Tony strangely of a frightened eagle.

Bucky’s arms around his waist tighten, “so, anything off that list of yours you want to try this time around?” he asks.

Tony turns around in Bucky’s arms, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck. “Maybe, we’ll see.”

*

“Why do you look surprised to see me? I’ve been banished from the apartment with a proverbial sock on the door,” Steve says to Rhodey.

He considers this for a moment and shrugs, “alright, that makes sense. Question though, what the fuck?” he asks.

Steve has no idea what he means so he goes with the last thing that happened in both his and Rhodey’s presence. “Bucky claims it was hate at first sight, which is pretty weird for him because he doesn’t really have the energy to hate stuff these days.” He used to hate plenty of things before he lost his arm but after, well, most of his time is spent lost and confused. At least until Tony showed up, now he’s got more passion than Steve has seen in a long time even if its only for one thing. But it’s a start, one Bucky has needed for a really long time and conveniently Steve had to go step on that.

Rhodey frowns, “wait, what, no. That was weird and I don’t know what Sam’s deal was but whatever. I mean this Bucky thing- the jealousy and all that. I don’t like what I see,” he says, eyes narrowing protectively.

He probably shouldn’t laugh but Rhodey reminds him of Bucky, or himself, depending on who got into shit this time. Rhodey doesn’t look like he appreciates the reaction. “Yeah, pretty sure Tony can take care of himself,” he says. Better than most people Steve knows and considering his age that’s impressive. When he was eighteen, almost nineteen, he spent most of the year in the hospital whining about it. Then he hit an inexplicable growth spurt and almost spontaneously outgrew a bunch of heath issues. He kind of wishes the colitis went away too but he hadn’t gotten that lucky.

“You think Tony can take care of himself? Do you have eyes- he can’t even do laundry!” Rhodey says and he’s not wrong.

“Yeah, pretty sure he had maids to do all the dirty work for him. But he’s fairly competent elsewhere so I’m not sure you need to be all that worried,” he tells Rhodey.

“Or you’re not looking past the fact that its your best friend Tony is dating,” Rhodey counters.

Sure, could be, except Bucky is shit at jealousy and can’t maintain it no matter how much he’d like to. “I could say the same for you, that you underestimate Tony because you clearly have a strong desire to protect him. He doesn’t need it, you know.” Of the four of them Steve gets the distinct impression that Tony is the most likely to get himself out of a bad situation. Steve and Bucky have always relied on each other for that, and Rhodey clearly has drive and intelligence but Tony is special in a way none of them are.

Rhodey rolls his eyes at him, “you haven’t known him as long as I have and yeah he does- Tony sure as hell doesn’t bother to take care of himself, he’s always throwing himself head first into shit like this and I’m not going to watch it blow up in his face.”

“I don’t think Tony is going to let you do much of anything,” Steve says. “He’s probably the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.” And he’s met Natasha, who once refused to speak to Clint for a solid five months because he told her that he didn’t like spiders. The only reason she even spoke to him again after that was because he was about to die and he had to admit spiders were the best before she actually helped him.

“Yeah, well, I’ll figure it out,” Rhodey mumbles.

Steve laughs, “no you won’t. This isn’t the first time you’ve tried something like this and it didn’t work last time. Plus whatever your plan is probably relies on me if you went out of your way to find me and I’m not going to help you ruin my best friend’s relationship.”

“From what I hear there’s something in it for you,” Rhodey says and Steve rolls his eyes, wrinkling his nose as he does it.

“Yeah- generally ruining the only friendship that’s gotten me through the worst times of my life and any chances of Tony even _liking_ me afterwards given that he’s not fucking stupid. He’d figure out whatever your plan is. Seriously? Is this an actual thing you want to do?” he asks. “Because it sounds like a good way to get Tony to hate you too.” Not, Steve thinks, that it’d last. Tony has a soft underbelly, he’d probably forgive Rhodey eventually but still.

Rhodey considers this for a moment, looking Steve over. “And you seriously don’t think any of this is a problem?” he asks.

“No, on account of the problem you’re suggesting needing a pattern that doesn’t exist. You’ve known Tony for a long time but I don’t remember a time without Bucky- this… whatever this is with him isn’t something he’s done before. And yeah, he was acting like a real jackass, but its not like we all haven’t pointed that out to him. Especially Tony.” Efficiently too, given that he seems to have trained Bucky into knowing exactly what he’s thinking in a single look. Steve’s impressed, truly. Especially when he knows how damn dense Bucky can be.

“And if this goes as badly as I think it will?” he asks.

Steve shrugs, “that’s Tony’s choice to make. Do whatever you want, but all its going to do is piss Tony off when he finds out you’re meddling with his relationship. Stuff like this never works out, watch basically any movie ever.”

*

Steve’s right about the heat thing, which kind of pisses Tony off on account of disliking being extra sweaty and smelly for a solid three or so days, but it does come with the added benefit of extra attention from Bucky. He curls his arms around Tony’s waist and presses his face into Tony’s neck, smiling as Tony tilts his head to the side a little. “I’ve missed this,” Tony murmurs, running his hands up Bucky’s sides.

Bucky pulls back a little, frowning. “What do you mean?” he asks and Tony sighs, pressing his forehead to Bucky’s.

“This, us just being together like this. I know this whole Steve thing threw us both for a loop but this is good,” he says softly, leaning in to kiss Bucky softly.

Bucky pulls back a little, leaning away. “Sorry,” he murmurs and this time Tony believes it because it didn’t directly follow him being a jackass.

“I know, Buck,” he murmurs, running a hand through his hair. “And we’ll always be okay, I knew that pretty much as soon as I actually met you.”

Bucky lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, how long did you creepily watch me anyway?”

“Couple months. Don’t look at me like that, the first month was trying to recreate your arm, the second month was because I realized belatedly that you have a great ass,” he says, grinning mostly to himself.

“Seriously? It was actually my arm that drew you in?” Bucky asks and there’s something else there in his tone, something Tony doesn’t quite pick up on.

He nods, “I told you- I’m an engineer and there are maybe three people on this _planet_ who could make something like that and I’m one of them, the other one is in Wakanda, and the third is rumored dead. I was curious.” And curiosity has always driven most of his actions, maybe not always in the best of ways though this particular time it turned out well. Exceptionally well, actually.

Bucky spares a glance at his arm and looks away fast, something flashing across his fast too fast for Tony to catch it. “Its not that special,” he murmurs but he’s _so_ wrong.

“Maybe to you, but to an engineer- a talented one anyway- that’s an impossible task. Biology tends to do a much better job than bionics but your arm shows almost no difference. Luckily for you you happen to be just as interesting as your arm,” Tony tells him, kissing him again. Bucky relaxes some, sparing his arm another glance.

“Is it seriously that interesting to you?” he asks, looking baffled.

Tony laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah Bucky, engineering is my _life_ \- for most of my life I’ve preferred machines to people. And your arm is an engineering work of _art_ \- its probably the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen that I haven’t also built.” Of course it makes no sense that Bucky _must_ be wearing something Anton Vanko built, but he’s seen stranger things. Its entirely possible that someone found the design and made it though that person would have to be exceptional at their job to manage.

“This… really doesn’t freak you out?” Bucky asks, lifting his metal hand and carefully brushing his hand along Tony’s cheek.

He catches Bucky’s hand, holding it in place as he presses his face into it. “To be honest its probably the part of you I’m the most comfortable with. Like I said, machines are what I know best but people? Unpredictable messes- I don’t know what the hell is going on in my own head half the time and I live with my thoughts at all times.” No matter how much he wishes he didn’t.

Bucky leans in and kisses him, pressing Tony in as close as he can before he pulls away marginally. “I love you,” he says softly.

Tony grins, “I know,” he says in a cocky tone. He gives Bucky a brief kiss and pulls back, “and I love you too.”


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky is watching Ancient Aliens mostly on account of Tony’s asleep so he doesn’t have to listen to whatever likely well reasoned argument against aliens he’s sure to come up with. Though he did recently learn that Tony believes in aliens, said it was statistically unlikely that earth is the only planet with life on it, but in the most boring way. Microbes, really? Bucky prefers a little fun to his aliens, hence his weird show taste, but Tony is too strict in his scientific belief for fun he guesses.

He doesn’t really expect Steve to show up, he’s been scarce for the last three days, but he comes through the door quietly, obviously with the intent of not disturbing Bucky and Tony. He looks over, probably because the TV is on, and frowns when he sees Bucky. “I uh, thought you’d be asleep,” he says softly.

“Nah. Tony’s the tired one,” he says, gesturing to Tony currently sleeping on his chest. He looks adorable like that, curled up around Bucky even if he lost feeling in his left leg like two hours ago because of the way Tony is laying. But moving would be illegal, like trying to kick a cat off your lap.

Steve looks at the screen and half smiles, “Ancient Aliens? I’m sure Tony will be thrilled when he wakes up,” he says, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well its because _you_ ratted me out,” Bucky mumbles.

“He was bound to find out eventually,” Steve points out, “you can’t hide your weird forever.”

Well he could have damn well _tried_ but now he doesn’t have that option. “Probably not, but I was doing a good job of it before you went and told him I didn’t believe in the fucking moon,” he says. He’d had to assure Tony that yes, he believes in the goddamn moon Steve was being an ass.

Steve continues being an ass by laughing and Bucky is offended, really, because there was no need to out his weird interests. “I’m sorry, but I had to tell someone about it- you went on for like two hours about the moon being some kind of government projected hologram and-” Steve doubles over, wheezing like a jackass.

“I hope a bird shits on you,” Bucky mumbles.

“Why would the government care?” Steve wheezes out. “And how is every single world government working together? To what end? What do they get out of faking the _moon_?” he asks. “When did the moon faking start?”

Bucky rolls his eyes, “I don’t know, I’m not one of the idiots who believes this I just thought it was interesting. You didn’t have to go rat me out.”

Thankfully Steve recovers, straightening himself a little. “Seriously, Bucky, he was eventually going to find out you have weird interests. How many books did you manage to hide about cults?” he asks and yeah, Bucky didn’t hide them he straight up got rid of them. They were mostly hidden anyway on account of any one night stand he might have brought home probably thinking that guy with all the cult books is weird.

“Yeah, but I liked not being the weird one for once,” he mumbles.

“Dude you have a metal arm, you’re always the weird one. And didn’t Tony like… lowkey stalk you for a month?” he asks. “Pretty sure you two _started_ weird. Like I’ve heard of meet cute, but you two meet weird.”

Good point, Bucky guesses. “In his defense he was people watching and I happened to be interesting people with an arm he was trying to figure out. So like, not really stalking given that we were both following our normal routines, its just that we happened to be in the same space. Pretty sure if I stopped showing up he would have assumed I died and moved on.” He hadn’t been invested, Bucky could tell, he’d just been somewhat curious. Even if his interest definitely started and ended weird. Actually no, Steve makes a good point, that’s a really fucking weird way to meet your significant other. “See, I have a point,” Steve says, clearly seeing Bucky come to the correct conclusion that he’s right. “It worked out however vaguely creepy it started,” Steve points out.

“Yeah, after I assured him that I do, in fact, believe in the moon. I dodged the Talor Swift question though,” he says and Steve laughs.

“Tell him he has no right to judge when he butchers Bohemian Rhapsody in the shower semi regularly,” he says.

Bucky starts laughing, jostling Tony, who lifts his head to glare at Bucky. “Can you two talk about dumb conspiracies, Taylor Swift, and our unusual relationship start _elsewhere_ , please? I’m _trying_ to sleep,” he grumbles, looking quite pissed off.

“You’re currently using me as a pillow, so technically I can’t move,” he points out.

Tony looks down at himself and frowns before he pulls away, dragging himself off Bucky’s body and the couch before wordlessly fucking off to the bedroom. Steve watches him go, amused. “Does his hair always do that? Stick up all over the place like some kind of goth dandelion?”

Bucky snorts and starts laughing, “Christ, yeah he does look like a dandelion going through its goth phase,” he says, shaking his head.

Tony sticks his head out the door of the bedroom, looking unimpressed. “Call me a goth dandelion again and I will _end_ you both,” he mumbles before slinking back inside the room.

Steve lets out another small laugh and goes to walk away and Bucky frowns. “Where are you going?” he asks and surprise, of all things, flickers across Steve’s face.

“Uh, to my room? Assuming Tony hasn’t taken over the bed again,” he says more as an afterthought.

Its weird, Bucky thinks, that Steve’s first thought isn’t to sit with him and make fun of his love for Ancient Aliens like he normally does and he’s surprised by the hurt he feels. Not that its anyone’s fault but his own, he’s the one who pushed Steve away over Tony of all the stupid things he could have chosen. But no, that’s not quite right either because he likes Tony, loves him even and love doesn’t come easy to him. It never has, but the kind of trust required for a connection like the one he has with Tony, or Steve for that matter, comes even less easily after losing his arm.

Before that he was at least good at faking like he felt some kind of something even though he’d always had the sneaking suspicion that always became a reality that whomever he was with wouldn’t accept his relationship with Steve. Tony though, he’s all kinds of strange in the best of ways and he accepts their relationship just fine. Seems this time _Bucky_ was the one who took on the role his significant others usually did, or Steve’s assuming he was dating someone at the time.

“I uh… want to watch Ancient Aliens with me?” he asks and Steve shakes his head.

“Fuck no. But there’s some documentary on some random cult I keep hearing is good on Netflix and probably has a lot less heinous of a narrator for it,” he says and Bucky’s nervousness dies down.

“Fine, but only because Wild Wild Country has been on my list for like a month,” he says, nose in the air like its some kind of hardship to put up with Steve’s request.

Steve rolls his eyes and walks over, taking over the TV while Bucky sits up and tries to return feeling to his left leg.

*

Steve didn’t expect that documentary to be so interesting, cults have never peaked his interest, but _shit_ its good. Bucky is leaning forward in his seat too, eyes glued to the screen because seriously, this has taken some sharp turns and it wasn’t really expected. So when Bucky pauses Steve frowns. “What? I want snacks and I also don’t want to miss anything what the _fuck_ ,” he says, looking as baffled as Steve feels.

Bucky gets up and heads to the fridge while Steve tries to process what his eyes have been shown. “I miss this,” Bucky says softly, head still stuck in the fridge. Steve rolls his eyes. Fuck, he’s bad at this. Always has been, but given that his only close lasting relationship has been with someone who understands him totally he’s never had to grown emotional intelligence skills. Steve just happens to be good at it naturally.

“Miss what?” Steve asks, intentionally playing dumb. Bucky knows it too because he glares over the top of the door at Steve.

“Hanging out, talking. I… didn’t realize how much until now,” he says softly.

Steve shrugs, “well, looks like you and Tony worked things out so I uh, guess that’s done,” he says even though that’s mostly not true. But it does give Bucky an out.

He doesn’t take it. “No it isn’t. Like fine, whatever, you developed _feelings_ or whatever for Tony. I don’t want that to ruin our friendship. Especially since ‘friendship’ isn’t even an accurate word for it,” he says softly.

Yeah, Steve doesn’t want that to fuck them over either but he doesn’t know how to deal with this whole… _thing_. “Neither do I, but we’re not seriously going to ignore being in love with the same guy. That seems like a recipe for disaster. You’ve forced me to watch too many romance movies for me to think that would end well,” he says.

Bucky closes the fridge door, sighing. He stands like that for a minute, clearly in thought, before he turns around looking conflicted. “Tony’s right, we’ve shared everything else. Including him, so what really _is_ the difference when you’ve always been half involved in our relationship? He might have been a bit of a dick about it, but he’s not wrong.”

Yes, Tony and his pointed but well reasoned arguments. Too bad he does hard sciences more than humanities, Steve would love to read his hot takes in academic papers but he wouldn’t be able to understand a _lick_ of what he writes in engineering fields.

“The fact that you kind of flipped shit?” Steve points out.

Bucky sighs, shaking his head. “People like you better. I figured Tony would too,” he says and Steve can’t help it, he starts laughing. Bucky doesn’t look impressed but he just doesn’t… _understand_ that.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Had No Trouble Making Friends And Getting Dates _Ever_ thinks _I’m_ the more likable one? Fuck me Bucky, I was invisible until I was twenty one and you seriously think people liked me better than you?” What kind of fucking delusion has he been living in?

“After you grew a bunch and discovered muscle mass, yeah,” Bucky says. “People consistently like you over me.”

Steve rolls his eyes, “no, people recognized I had leadership skills because I now resembled a leader they could respect. It had nothing to do with being liked and everything to do with me fitting enough norms that people started taking me seriously. To be honestly it’s insulting and I’ve always hated it. None of those people would have taken me seriously skinny, most of them didn’t. That attention was backhanded,” he says.

Something must occur to Bucky then because he frowns. “That’s why you didn’t like any of them,” he says and Steve nods.

“I don’t have a use for people who think highly of me only because I look like someone they think is respectable. You always took me seriously,” he says softly. That’s difficult, knowing that you’d be treated entirely differently if you looked the way you used to. Its been hard, getting used to that change, then there was a time when he got a little _too_ used to it, and now he mostly keeps to himself. Point is he’s more aware than most, he guesses, that people’s opinion of him is entirely way too precarious.

Bucky sighs. “I um. Didn’t think of that. Its just that you’re always the Golden Boy, the leader. You might have been invisible until you were twenty one but after you hit that growth spurt I spent _years_ in your shadow. That fucking sucked, especially when it seemed like most people in my life either spent time with me to get to you or straight up didn’t want you in my life. I wasn’t willing to put up with either of those things,” he says.

Yeah, Bucky got a good taste of what it’s like to be him, Steve guesses. Not that he ever viewed it that way. “From my point of view people always acted like you were less to handle. I was always too much of something, but not you. Besides, Tony didn’t like me at all when we first met. He was leery around me for _weeks_ before… I don’t know, I must have said or done something that got him to relax because he’s fine now. But its pretty obvious that he only likes me because he was stuck spending enough time with me to get used to my personality. You two clicked right away. Like _right_ away.” He thought they’d been dating for months, not days, when he met Tony and he’d been fucking confused. Nothing that happened after that made him less confused either because they just… got along freakishly well. At least until he accidentally messed stuff up.

Bucky laughs, “yeah, Tony said that too. I kind of feel bad for being an ass,” he mumbles, looking at the floor.

Steve shrugs, “I kind of forced your hand,” he points out.

“Did not, I acted like a fool all on my own and you… felt stuff. And have been apparently very polite about it according to Tony,” Bucky says.

“Not his fault I developed a stupid crush. I’m not thirteen anymore, this whole thing was fucking stupid,” he points out.

“Maybe. But I still think Tony has a point about our relationship lines already being pretty blurred. And they always have been, its why none of our relationships have ever worked out. How many times have we been accused of loving each other more than whoever we were with? Tony’s never acted like that,” Bucky points out. “He just went with it.”

“You sure you’re not going to re-lose your shit? Because I don’t think Tony will deal with that twice,” he says. Bucky’s kind of lucky he dealt with it once but Bucky seems to know that.

He nods. “Look, I have better things to waste my time on than jealousy that makes no sense. Maybe it was a long time coming, I’ve kind of always felt like the lesser of the two of us even when you were skinny, but I’m not willing to ruin all my relationships over it. I only have two,” he points out.

“One, assuming I understood your proposition right,” Steve says.

Bucky shrugs, “depends on what Tony says I guess. But he’s weirdly adventurous and also apparently assumed that was endgame anyway so probably he’ll be fine with it,” Bucky says like that’s just a normal thing people do.

Steve sighs. “And I thought weird sex orgies, poisoning townsfolk, and voter fraud with homeless people was all I was the only emotional whiplash I was going to be dealing with tonight,” he says.

*

Tony crawls his ass out of bed thankfully not feeling feverish but he is ready to eat drywall he’s so hungry so when he finds Steve with food he doesn’t even care if its his food or not, he snatches the plate and scarfs down half the food in seconds. “Guess it’s a good thing that was yours,” Steve mumbles, shaking his head a little. Tony gives him an apologetic look but he’s too hungry to care.

“Where’s Bucky?” he asks around the food.

“Not clue, he should have been back by now but for all I know he’s been accosted by another person looking to get him to join a gym. He’s terrible at saying no,” Steve says. Tony knows because he has no problem telling people to shove it. Sure they’re doing their jobs but also he has better shit to do than join gyms. Exercise should be illegal anyway.

“Hmm. What is this?” he asks, remembering belatedly that he doesn’t actually know what the food _is_.

“Uh, vegan breakfast,” Steve says, frowning like he doesn’t know how to explain the food Tony just shoved down his gullet.

Tony wrinkles his nose and sets the plate aside. “Ew. Any non-vegan options?” he asks.

Steve frowns, eyebrows drawing together. “Tony, you’ve been eating a gluten free vegan diet for _months_ and you haven’t complained,” Steve tells him and he’s been eating a _who what_?

“Excuse me?” he asks, eyebrows by his hairline.

“Health issues, remember? I even _look_ at gluten and I’m shitting through the eye of a needle for weeks and meat doesn’t agree with me either. Hence the diet,” he says.

“You’ve fed me meat,” Tony says. He remembers it. It was definitely meat.

“Meat alternatives yeah, protein has to come from somewhere,” Steve says.

The door opens and Bucky walks in, frowning when he sees the two of them. “Uh hey. Who shit in Tony’s Cheerios this morning?” he asks.

“Did you know we’ve been eating hippie rabbit food for months?” he asks and Bucky’s a fucking dirty bitch traitor because he bursts out laughing.

“Tell you what Tony, you learn how to cook and you can eat as much meat as your little heart desires,” Steve says, grinning at him because he’s an evil fucker who _knows_ Tony can’t cook.

“I hate you more than ISIS,” Tony says, straight faced.


	9. Chapter 9

Tony leans into Bucky’s side, watching some weird shit where people are dressed in a lot of red and orange for some reason? Tony thinks they’re in a cult but he doesn’t say anything because Bucky’s into it. So is Steve, which is weird, but he leaves them be until finally whatever the hell they’re into runs out.

“Are we watching shows to match our crunchy granola hippie flower child diet?” he asks.

Bucky frowns, “baby, that was a show about a cult so… no. But a lot of cults are vegetarian so I mean…” he trails off, looking to Steve for help and oh, that’s nice. Normal, for them, and Tony wonders if they talked after he dragged his ass to bed. Good, he’s tired of them avoiding each other.

Steve rolls his eyes, “this isn’t a cult because I can’t handle meat or gluten oh my _god_ you guys are dramatic. Tony, you liked it all before I told you that the food was vegan so deal with it.”

“You fed me lies,” Tony hisses.

“I fed you food, its not my fault you assumed what was in it,” Steve mumbles.

“Who doesn’t assume food that usually has meat in it doesn’t have meat in it!” Obviously no one, Tony is absolutely in the right.

“Look, be glad you weren’t the one dealing with his attempts to learn how to cook. Most of his food tasted like dirt until he figured out how not to make vegan food taste too much like it came straight from the earth,” Bucky says.

“And you _love_ zucchini noodles,” Steve says, “you literally favor them over every other kind of noodle. Probably not now that you know its zucchini because you insist on acting like a twelve year old about food,” he mumbles.

“I do _not_!” Tony says. He thinks.

Steve gets up, goes to the fridge and pulls out a couple containers before bringing them back to Tony with a fork. “Tell me which one is the zucchini noodles,” he says and Tony takes the containers, nose in the air.

He taste tests them both and points to his final result, “this one because its not as good,” he says confidently.

“That’s the one that isn’t zucchini noodles, which I could have told you because you _prefer_ zucchini noodles. You’ve been eating a vegan diet and you haven’t been missed anything, deal with it,” Steve tells him.

Tony crosses his arms over his chest because he _refuses_.

*

“When I was a kid I used to looks pissed off like ninety percent of the time so in an attempt to get me to stop looking like I was fucking possessed my grandfather told me that if I kept making that face it’d get stuck like that. But you know, I was a pretty famous kid and at the time I hated he attention so I figured fine, if I look like I belong in a damn horror movie maybe people will fuck off. Was _super_ pissed off when I found out that was bullshit,” Tony says, shaking his head.

Steve is doubled over wheezing and Bucky looks… confused. “How the hell did you think your weird would outshine _his_ weird?” Steve asks. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s not happening.”

“Um, excuse you that is a normal childhood experience and is so not weirder than having a strange amount of information of aliens stealing energy from human chakras. Which is so unbelievably stupid I don’t actually know where to start with it,” Tony says, shaking his head.

“Kinda want to see pictures of you as a kid now,” Bucky says and no, Tony has erased them all off the internet. Or as much as possible, there’s a few lingering around in places he can’t get to without arising suspicion but the rest are buried so deep an actual genius would have to work to find them.

“That’s not normal,” Steve adds. “Well the shitty face thing is, but other than that uh. No. Sometimes I don’t think you know anything about anything.”

Tony gives him a _look_ , “uh hello, _actual_ genius. I probably know more about most things than you,” he points out.

“There’s no way in hell you know more about money budgeting than me. Don’t make that face Tony, you’ve always had money. You never needed to consider how to spend it,” Steve says. Tony glares but says nothing only because one time Rhodey took him grocery shopping and he was genuinely out of his league.

“Fine, you know more about household shit but I know how to fix the washing machine if it breaks,” he says, nose in the air.

Bucky snorts, “how the fuck does a washing machine break?” he asks.

Tony doesn’t tell him about the time when he accidentally managed to simultaneously flood the laundry room and also light the washing machine on fire in college. Or in charm school. But he _does_ know how the machines work and how to fix them even if he’s got no clue how to use them. So _ha_.

“Rich people would die if poor people weren’t around to do everything for them,” Steve mumbles.

True, but Tony doesn’t want to deal with that. “Don’t you two have a movie to go see? Get lost,” he tells them, making a shooing motion at them.

“You’re only doing that because you don’t want to deal with the fact that you’d die without poor people,” Steve says and yeah he _knows_ that on account of not knowing how to fucking cook but in his defense neither does Bucky. So he’d _also_ die without poor people. Even if he’s also kind of a poor person. Is he poor? Tony has no idea what tax bracket that is. Or which one Bucky falls into but given his tiny ass apartment he’ll assume poor fits the bill.

“So? Shoo,” Tony tells them.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Bucky asks, which is sweet but no.

“I have plans, actually, so no,” Tony tells him and he frowns because he hadn’t mentioned anything. “Also, Steve’s movie taste is garbage,” he adds. Steve looks offended but he shouldn’t be. Art house movies should be illegal because they’re meaningless bullshit touted around as some kind of fucking high art form. Pretentious trash is what it is.

“You like The Fast and the Furious movies, what place do you have to judge?” Steve mumbles.

“Those movies are amazing!” Tony says in his defense.

“You’re both wrong. Avatar The Last Airbender is the pinnacle of movie art,” Bucky tells them with so much conviction Tony is almost sure he believes it. Except _no one_ could possibly believe that.

When he doesn’t follow up with some kind of indication that he’s joking Tony turns to Steve. “Yeah, we’re together now and we’re kicking Bucky out because he’s a fucking savage.”

Bucky gives Steve an offended look but Steve only shrugs a little and looks away, guilty because he’s clearly sided with Tony. “You guys are dicks,” Bucky mumbles.

*

Sam looks a level of unimpressed that has rolled itself full circle to impressing Tony. “You know I have patients with real problems, right?” he asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“I was _bamboozled_ ,” he says and Sam rolls his eyes.

“You eat healthy, stop whining about it and tell me why you’re really here,” he says. Tony gets the feeling Sam isn’t normally this blunt to patients and he wonders if it’s a him thing or if his long rant about being tricked into veganism actually pissed him off or something. Which, like, _rude_. Anyone who gets stuck being a surprise vegan should be mad about it.

“Nah, mostly I’m double checking that you aren’t like. Hannibal Lecter or something,” Tony says, shrugging.

 Sam actually manages to look more unimpressed than he was before. “I am forever going to be pissed off at that author for making Hannibal a damn psychiatrist. You aren’t the first person to reference him and no I don’t eat people in my spare time, why is that even a thing people think? How many people do you think are out there just eating people?” Sam asks.

Tony shrugs, “I don’t know. I don’t really want to know. Point is I’m double checking my work here.”

Sam sighs, “you and Rhodey really need to learn not to meddle in each other’s relationships and trust that you can make good choices. Though I will admit if I were him I would also be concerned about your relationship but you actually seem fine so,” Sam waves a hand around. “He should leave it be. What the hell inspired to two of you to come up with some weird movie hijinks to attempt to fuck around with each other’s relationships anyway?”

Uh, probably the fact that they’re awesome and not boring. “In Rhodey’s defense I one hundred percent cannot make good choices. I am a bad choice maker, its just that with Bucky I chose okay,” he says.

Sam wrinkles his nose, “yeah, that’s debatable but as far as Rhodey is concerned you don’t appear to be suffering from your relationship. Actually it seems like one of the only things in your life to have gone well,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s pretty true. Except Rhodey, he turned out well too. I don’t see why he’s so concerned with the Bucky thing though. Even Happy gave up harassing the poor guy and Happy is like a dog with a bone when he decides he’s right about something,” he says.

“And Happy is?” Sam asks.

“Previous driver/ body guard. Slipped him mostly on account that I don’t _need_ a damn body guard and I know how to drive. My grandfather decided he was needed. But he’s a little overprotective so. And even _he_ gave up.” So did Pepper, who’s now stuck buried in school work that’s probably only taking up as much time as it is because she’s a perfectionist.

“Well, Rhodey sure as hell hasn’t. I get that he wants to make sure your safe and all that but I think maybe he should learn to trust to make sure you’re safe yourself. Its not like you’re lacking in survival skills, intelligence, and I suspect even if you were running low on resources you’d _make_ them. And you need to worry about Rhodey less. You’ve all but admitted yourself that he’s more competent at this type of thing than you. Personally, I think you two are paranoid that relationships with other people will somehow ruin yours. It won’t if you don’t let it and given the sheer amount of time Rhodey spends talking about you he’s not going to just let you fuck off,” Sam says.

Tony squints, “is this more weird psychoanalysis?” he asks suspiciously.

Sam sighs, “actually its more like basic observations of your relationship with Rhodey from his point of view and yours. The simplest solution to your problem is literally to spend more time together. Maybe you two will drop the weird paranoia. Seriously, this is not normal- people don’t fake needing therapy to make sure their friends aren’t dating creeps,” Sam says.

“Well, maybe if more people did there’d be less creeps,” Tony says, nose in the air.

“There would not be less creeps, you’d be the creeps! Look Tony, you’ve got more problems than a math test and that was gathered from loosely following your work, a single extended conversation with you, and the fact that Rhodey talks about your childhood abuse in such a blasé manner that it must have been inherited from you. It didn’t take much to figure out you probably actually need therapy so instead of whatever you’re doing now maybe try that,” Sam tells him.

Tony wrinkles his nose for a moment, considering. “Can we go back to my being forced to be vegan because that is one hundred percent the worst thing that has ever happened to me,” he says.

Sam lets out a long sigh. “You casually admit to your father beating you as a child but eating vegetables is the worst thing that ever happened to you? Really? Man, I thought white people loved veganism,” Sam mumbles.

“No, no. There’s White People and then there’s white people. I’m white people,” Tony says with emphasis.

For a moment Sam just stares. “Man, I don’t know what the hell that means. Go eat a damn burger if you feel that strongly about it. Invite Rhodey so he doesn’t feel like he’s being replaced. Especially since his pseudo replacement is Ebola on legs,” Sam says, wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, what the hell was with your reaction to him anyway? There’s nothing wrong with Bucky,” he says.

Sam shakes his head. “Oh you are _so_ wrong. He is the pineapple on pizza of people,” he says with conviction and Tony wrinkles his nose.

“I will never forgive the fucking Canadians for _desecrating_ my people’s food like that!” No Italian with self respect thinks that’s an acceptable pizza topping and if they do they’re both wrong and a traitor to their heritage. “Also, that’s rude to Bucky,” he adds belatedly, remembering that he should maybe defend Bucky’s honor.

*

Rhodey stares at Tony like he’s an idiot. “That’s a bad idea,” he says.

Tony takes a bite of his burger, “I think it’s a great idea,” he mumbles around the food.

“Bucky was _just_ being a jackass about this whole thing and now- what are you doing?” he asks as Tony wrinkles his nose, spitting his food into a napkin and pushing the burger away from him, nose wrinkled.

“I’m a vegan,” he says and he can feel his soul leave his body with that admission.

Rhodey squints at him, “you just had cow in your mouth,” he points out.

Tony lets out a long sigh. “I’ve decided whatever Steve makes his burgers from tastes better than cow,” he says. This is the worst thing ever. This is worse than what the Canadians did to pizza when they stuck _fruit_ on it. fucking fruit on pizza, only some idiot who got half froze in their stupid long winter could come up with an idea so stupid. To make matters worse Rhodey clearly hates Italians because his dumb ass loves pineapple on pizza.

Rhodey shakes his head, “oh _hell_ no you need to leave this household, they’re turning you into a hippie! This is not good for your health, man, you need to get out of there before you start preaching free love or some shit,” he says.

“I mean, aside from people blatantly misusing free love to be dicks sometimes what _is_ wrong with that?” he asks.

“Oh my god you’ve been brainwashed,” Rhodey says, shaking his head.

“Oh don’t be fucking dramatic, Steve’s just a freakishly good cook,” Tony tells him. “Which is good because neither Bucky or I can cook. With Steve, we’re like one functioning adult!” Tony knows how to do the math things, Steve does the house things and Bucky… is good at the sex things, he guesses. Okay so actually its him and Steve that make the adult, Bucky is ornamental but still. Looking pretty is good too.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's a short boi, but still good lol.

Tony curls his arms around Bucky’s shoulders, leaning into his back. “You sure about this?” he asks, half draped over Bucky’s shoulder.

“No,” Bucky mumbles and Tony sighs.

“Bucky-” he starts but Bucky cuts him off.

“Not like that. Its just… new, this type of thing. But I mean, we do have a bad habit of being kind of doing everything else together anyway. And its not like our lines don’t blur in our relationship already,” he points out.

Tony wrinkles his nose, “don’t remind me of that creepy date rape song,” he says and Bucky huffs out a laugh.

“Not what I meant. But I don’t… don’t mind testing this out, seeing where it could go,” he says.

Great, at least that problem is solved. Actually no, its not even close to solved but its some type of figured out so at least they can move on somewhat. “You’re not going to lose your shit if Steve looks at me with a spoon in his hand again, are you?” he asks, just to be sure.

Bucky rolls his eyes, “it was one time, let a guy live.”

“I would prefer not to if you’re going to act like that. Next time maybe just be up front with how you feel. Saves oodles of time,” Tony points out.

“You say that like you don’t bottle your feelings to age like fine wines.” Yeah okay, he’s right but he has no right to be.

“Let a guy live,” Tony says, throwing Bucky’s argument back at him. Bucky shakes his head at him but lets him have it.

*

Steve is currently cooking, which serves Tony well because he could use the temporary distraction. And Bucky currently has his head stuck in the fridge searching for something or another in there. Tony considers his options. He could do a few things here, and he’s sure he knows what the best option is but he’s also probably not going to do that because he’s incapable of making good choices.

He could ignore Bucky’s insistence that a relationship with Steve is fine on account of him probably not being over whatever lingering anxieties he might have. He could take it slow, let things build up at its own pace but then that comes with a risk of seething resentment he won’t know exists until several months later. Or he can just go for gold now, see what happens and deal with the fallout immediately.

He knows that’s the dumbest option, its probably best to let Bucky initiate whatever but he’s not fond of waiting around and seeing what happens. Its easier to blow shit up now and deal with the fallout afterwards. “Steve,” Tony says and he turns, half distracted by the food he’s cooking. Tony steps into his space fast, leaning up and kissing him. He’s pissed off he ended up so short- that’s not even an omega thing either he just got stiffed inches somewhere along the way and he’s mad about it.

It takes Steve a moment to respond given that he’s clearly surprised but when he does he wraps his arms around Tony’s waist, lifting him into the air. Try as he might he doesn’t manage to keep his feet on the floor as Steve lifts him. Bucky lets out a soft sight beside them, “can you not burn the food? Because that smells good,” he says. Steve drops Tony to the ground somewhat reluctantly and half turns to the food, one arm still around his waist, before he turns back and kisses Tony again. He risks a glance over to Bucky as Steve turns back to the food and thankfully he doesn’t look pissed off, but he doesn’t look like much of anything else either so Tony decides that’s not good even if its not _bad_ exactly either.

He slips out of Steve’s grip, he’d left his hand on Tony’s waist, and he walks over to Bucky and gives him a kiss too. No sense in leaving him out. Thankfully the tension in his body fades some and Tony ducks under his arm and sticks his head in the fridge. “Where are those zucchini noodles?” he asks and Steve sighs.

“I’m literally making food as you search,” he points out.

“I’ll eat that too,” he says with confidence. He’s always a hell of a lot hungrier after heats anyway. Which Bucky knows, and he’s sure Steve does too considering he apparently keeps track of these things. Steve shakes his head, smiling fondly but Bucky’s guilty face gives him away. “You ate them, didn’t you?” he asks and Bucky sighs.

“No,” he says, utterly unconvincingly as he looks at the ground.

Steve snorts, “real convincing, Buck,” he says.

“I should have dated Rhodey,” Tony mumbles, earning a laugh out of Steve.

*

Steve is sure Tony has some kind of reason for sitting in his lap over Bucky’s given that it looked like a calculated move but Bucky has his nose out of joint. Which kind of makes this hard to enjoy when normally he’d be ecstatic. But he doesn’t want to ruin his best friend’s relationship with his stupid feelings and Tony has clearly noticed Bucky’s looks but he hasn’t said anything about it. Probably waiting for Bucky to say something but there’s a good chance that’ll never happen so.

Eventually Bucky shifts a little, stretching himself out across the couch and dropping his head in Tony’s lap. He immediately reaches out and pets Bucky’s hair, running his fingers through the long strands. Thankfully Bucky relaxes some and so does Steve. “What the fuck is this?” Tony asks, gesturing to the TV.

Steve raises an eyebrow at Bucky because he’s not fucking explaining this and Bucky sighs. “Ancient Aliens,” he mumbles eventually.

Tony watches for a few more minutes, squinting as the guy with the crazy hair tries to explain that ancient depictions of what looks like dinosaurs in some South American ancient society means aliens visited. “What’s with his hair?” he asks and Bucky shrugs.

“Maybe he likes it like that,” he says.

“Its fucking awful,” Tony tells him. “Also what the fuck _is_ this argument? What, did it not occur to him that maybe the people in this culture discovered paleontology before white people? Or, and this is a big shocker, humans _love_ making shit up. There are definitely lizards in that area, its not even _remotely_ out of the question that they’d see some random lizard trotting around and think ‘hmm what if that was a big ass lizard?’ and then make some kind of story about it. I mean, could be a coincidence that dinosaurs are a thing also, but humans are pretty damn imaginative. If this idiot lived a thousand years into the future and found the Hunger Games trilogy he’d assume it was real and written by aliens,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Just let me have my fun,” Bucky mumbles.

“No, your fun is dumb and has bad hair. If you’re going to _insist_ on watching alien shows at least make them better than this garbage,” Tony tells him.

Steve senses a long standing argument developing and sighs. “It could be worse Tony. Trust me. Take this over Alex Jones.”

Bucky glares at him, “it was _one_ time and I wanted to hear him yell about gay frogs!” Bucky says in his defense like that even _counts_ as a defense.

Tony gives him a look like he’ll have an explanation to all this but Steve doesn’t get Bucky’s weird interests either.

*

Tony crawls into bed with Bucky, curling up beside him. It takes a moment for Bucky to respond to his presence, which is more than enough to tell Tony about his mood. But he does eventually wrap an arm around Tony. He immediately curls in closer, pressing his face to Bucky’s chest and smiling. “So _now_ you want to be cuddly,” Bucky mumbles and there it is.

He sighs, lifting his head a little even though he doesn’t want to. “You know we already have a relationship, right?” he asks and Bucky frowns. “We connect well, _really_ well. I don’t have that with Steve, I barely even have a friendship with him. This isn’t me abandoning you for a shiny new toy; this is me playing catch up so I don’t look like a jackass playing favorites. I don’t need to work at betting used to you; we had that almost off the bat. Steve isn’t so lucky.”

“Didn’t look like you needed much work to be comfortable with Steve,” Bucky mumbles and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Because you were obviously jealous when you were looking. Steve was ridiculously stiff the whole time and I mostly felt like I was sitting in some stranger’s lap. It was weird and awkward but he’s a damn good kisser I will give him that,” Tony says. He’ll give credit where its due, Steve might have to give Bucky a lesson even if Tony doesn’t necessarily think Bucky is a _bad_ kisser per se. Its just that Steve has more skill at it.

“Seriously?” Bucky asks and Tony rolls his eyes.

“I love you, I do, but please pull your head out of your ass before you judge a situation. Yes, it was weird. Wasn’t so bad after you decided to lay down with your head in my lap but before that both Steve and I were kind of expecting you to… I don’t know, do something I guess.” He hadn’t, obviously, even if he clearly had his worries.

Bucky pulls Tony closer and he presses his face to Bucky’s chest again, “sorry,” Bucky mumbles and Tony sighs.

“Mhmm,” Tony murmurs. “Sure.”

“Seriously, sorry,” Bucky tells him and Tony snorts and starts laughing.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m sure you are.”

“Seriously!”

“Uh huh.”

“Don’t be rude,” Bucky mumbles.

“You started it,” Tony reminds him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This boi is coming to a close (probably only a chapter or two left) but I think I might do a third that mimics the first in the series, except with Tony/ Steve (and the occasional side of Bucky). We'll see.

As usual Tony can’t sleep so Steve’s not entirely surprised to find him in the living room, blanket wrapped around his body. He digs around in the fridge for a moment before emerging with leftovers and walking over and sitting in his lap again. Steve considers this for a moment, not wanting to step on Bucky’s boundaries, but decides that Tony must know something he doesn’t if he decided this was fine so he wraps his arms around Tony’s waist and smiles when Tony leans into him.

“So what is it that keeps you up at night anyway?” he asks and Steve sighs. They were bound to have this conversation but he doesn’t want to have it now. Or ever.

“What keeps you up?” he asks, deflecting for a moment.

Tony allows it. “Insomnia. Been to see people about it but the general consensus is that my brain moves to fast to slow down for five fucking minutes to allow me to sleep. I mean I do, just not nearly as much as people probably should.” He knows- Tony only ever has a normal sleep pattern in heat. Otherwise he’s up for days and then he’ll crash for a long while. Steve would be worried if it didn’t appear to be Tony’s version of normal as far as sleep patterns go.

Tony’s answer is simple, an easy explanation. Much easier than Steve’s response anyway. After a few moments he sighs, “I used to work for the CIA,” he says and Tony turns to give him a _look_ and Steve can bet why but Tony tells him anyway.

“ _You_ worked for the _CIA_?” he asks. “I’m admittedly not up to snuff on everything the CIA has done but everything I know involves them skirting responsibility for their actions, weird fucking experiments, and funding terrorism,” he says. The implication behind the words, though he hadn’t felt the need to voice it, is that none of those things are things Steve would approve of.

Steve nods, “then I guess you know why that didn’t last. Didn’t matter by the time I left though,” he murmurs.

Tony considers this for a moment but lets the conversation go, settling into Steve’s lap instead. He yawns, looking adorably tired even if Steve knows by now he’s unlikely to fall asleep, not for some time yet. “How’s Bucky?” he asks mostly to break the silence that doesn’t usually form when they spend time together at night.

“Bucky’s got dumb bitch disease and I think its terminal,” he says. Steve knows Tony’s half serious but they way he says it makes Steve crack up. “Don’t laugh, he doesn’t have eyes,” Tony says like that makes his previous statement less funny.

“Still touchy then, hm?” Steve asks and Tony shrugs.

“This was his idea, he can grow up and get used to it,” Tony says, nose in the air.

“I’m guessing that’s not what you told him,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow in silent inquiry.

“I told him that I already have a relationship with him. You’re the one who needs catch-up time because I’m not going to be a dick and play favorites,” he says like Bucky will ever _not_ be his favorite. Bucky might have his worries but Steve is certain he’ll never match the sheer natural chemistry the two have and have had since day one. He’s not a believer in love at first sight, but Tony and Bucky were as close to that as he’s ever seen. If it weren’t for the fact that they were sort of stuck spending time together he’s certain Tony wouldn’t even _like_ him let alone pursue a relationship with him.

Tony must see something in his facial expression because he shifts his position a bit, leaning into Steve’s space a little. “Just because I feel more strongly for Bucky now doesn’t mean I’ll never feel that way about you,” he murmurs. “Well, it kind of does but that’s because you’re different people and you can’t love people the same way. You already figured out how to care about me and Bucky both and so has he. I need time to figure out my own version of that.”

Surprisingly mature and candid for someone his age. Steve thinks his childhood, whatever he might have had of one, must have been something awful because normal almost-nineteen year olds are insufferable to him. Its not their fault, they lack life experience to know not to act like fools to someone in the know, but its still painful to watch sometimes. With Tony its hard to remember he’s as young as he looks given that he generally acts so much older. He routinely spends time with people who are older than him too, which Steve supposes probably didn’t help any.

“Might be easier said then done,” he points out and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Of course its easier said than done. Love requires being able to accept people’s flaws and work with them too. With Bucky its easy, I don’t think it’ll be so easy with you,” he says and Steve raises an eyebrow. That hurts to hear, but its honest. Brutally so.

“What makes you say that? I mean, not that you’re wrong or anything for feeling that way but what makes Bucky’s flaws easier?” He’s genuinely curious actually, because most people think Bucky’s flaws are too much to handle and Tony has never had trouble with him. He’s never seen two people get along better and frankly he thinks it must be what people feel around him and Bucky all the time. A certain kind of love that’s hard to break into.

Tony’s lips curl up a bit. “Bucky’s flaws are easy for me to understand, I have similar flaws. Don’t do a good job dealing with it when its me, but I know how he feels and that makes him easier to deal with. Easier to relate to. But you? I flat out don’t trust people who have the same kind of righteous chip on their shoulder that you do. In my experience those are the kind of people who have a great capacity for cruelty, but they’re also the kind of people who’d never admit to admit they’re cruel because they had a good reason, right? People who’s good side also doubles as their dark side scare me.”

Fuck, maybe he should tell Bucky that because he’s the only person Steve’s ever met who’s seen that about him. For a long time he didn’t see that about himself but Tony’s right. “To be honest,” he murmurs, “that scares me too.” More because he didn’t see it for such a long time, most of his life actually, until it was too late. He can see that Tony knows there’s more to that than what he’s said, that he wants to ask about it because if nothing else Tony is curious about everything. Probably his worst flaw, considering how often that curiosity gets him into trouble. Though his impulsive nature doesn’t help any.

Tony considers him for a moment, head tilted to the side as he thinks through whatever is going through his mind at the moment. “Your art is really good. Proportions are hard to get right,” he says and Steve raises an eyebrow. Tony’s not an artist though he’s seen his designs- he _could_ be given his talent for drawing, but his knowledge must be limited. Tony laughs, “don’t look at me like that, I took an art course or two to help with my ability to draw designs. I mean I’ve always been good at it, but not as good as I could be and accurate drawings are helpful to the design process. Your drawings are good, _really_ good. Do I actually look like that? The way you draw me?” he asks.

He wonders if the question means Tony has a distorted image of himself, but he already knows that’s at least somewhat true. He’s seen the way Tony freaks out over things there’s no _logical_ reason for him to freak out over, like grades. He’s so ahead he might as well make up his own program to teach himself and yet he seems to hold anxiety about how his designs will be received like any of his teachers could give him an accurate grade for something they can’t even comprehend its so far out of their league.

“No. I never quite manage to capture your beauty right, there’s always something missing,” he says honestly. Its difficult to draw out a personality and that, he thinks, is why most of his drawings fall flat. You can’t have Tony without _Tony_.

Tony laughs, shaking his head. “Yeah, I think you might be wrong about that. Pretty sure your notebook makes my cheekbones a lot prettier than they are in real life,” he says.

Ha, _no_. Steve can’t help but laugh, which Tony clearly doesn’t appreciate but its _funny_ okay? “I think you might need to look in the mirror again. It’s the eyes I get wrong consistently. I mean, they good enough, but I just can’t manage to draw the way they light up when you talk about something that’s interesting to you. It annoys me.” Understatement- it drives him fucking _nuts_ but people who aren’t artists don’t get the frustration with a project when all they have is what’s on the paper. Steve has what he imagined and whatever the hell ends up coming out, which never lives up to what he thought out in his head.

“Sure,” Tony says, curling up close to Steve, dropping his head to his shoulder and relaxing into him. He tightens his arms around Tony’s waist, and presses a soft kiss into Tony’s hair.

*

When Steve wakes up he’s somewhat surprised to find Tony laying on him but he’s more surprised to find Bucky standing by the couch scrolling through his phone holding one of Tony’s hands. “Uh, what are you doing?” he asks, confused. Tony doesn’t look confortable, arm stretched up like that but that’s his business he guesses.

Bucky looks down at him, then to Tony and sighs. “I just wanted water but then Tony called me over and it was so cute, he just wanted to hold hands and then he asked me to stay and then he fell back asleep and I’ve been here for three fucking hours and I didn’t even get the water,” he says, looking distressed.

Steve can’t help but start laughing, “that’s the cutest shit I’ve ever seen,” he says between his laughs.

Tony, having been jostled, wakes up and glares at him. “Stop that,” he says and frowns, looking over at his extended arm and pulling it immediately out of Bucky’s grasp. “My arm hurts,” he mumbles, dropping his head back to Steve’s chest and falling back asleep. Or he would have if Steve didn’t start laughing hysterically at the deeply offended look on Bucky’s face.

He grabs his phone and takes a picture fast because that’s the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen, even after Tony glares at him for laughing enough to keep him from falling asleep. Eventually he leaves Steve to laugh at Bucky’s offended expression alone. “I stood here for _three hours_ and I was _parched_ ,” Bucky says finally and Steve starts laughing harder.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think I only have one more chapter of this bad boi left so yay!

He sleeps like twice a damn year and of course Bucky and Steve had to go ruin that and then he couldn’t get back to sleep, which is why he’s in the kitchen making his anger known with dirty looks as he makes coffee. Bucky goes to grab a glass from the cupboard while Steve gets the coffee beans for him because some _asshole_ stuck it on the top shelf and he can’t fucking _reach_ that high. He’s mostly still half asleep when the glass shatters, scaring the hell out of all three of them. Tony blinks, frowning as Bucky stares at his metal hand and sighs, reaching for another glass. That one breaks too and he frowns at it.

“Sensor to tell you that you’ve grasped the cup hard enough must be busted,” he says absent mindedly. “Steve, the coffee beans?” he asks, looking up at the shelf that has ruined his morning. Steve looks confused for a moment before handing the beans over to him while Bucky reaches for another cup. Tony didn’t need a third busted cup to know Bucky’s arm is fucked but apparently he does and as predicted that one shatters too. “Grab shit with your fleshy hand or don’t touch anything,” Tony mumbles, turning to the coffee machine.

“Christ, you’re grumpy when you’re woken up,” Steve mumbles. Tony glares at him because there is not a person on this _planet_ who isn’t grumpy when woken up. Bucky continues to stare at his metal hand vaguely confused and Tony chooses to focus on the much less irritating coffee beans.

“It was fine yesterday,” Bucky murmurs.

“Guess you can be happy you weren’t jerking off when that happened. Pop goes the weasel,” Steve says in far too chipper of a tone for such a frankly horrifying image. Tony can’t help but start laughing and Bucky looks offended.

“You wouldn’t be laughing if that actually happened,” he mumbles and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Obviously not, it’d be a medical emergency. Imagine explaining that to a nurse though. ‘Yeah, I was jerking off then my arm went on the fritz and, well, guess its just a nub now.’” Bucky still looks horrified and to be fair so does Steve but he’s also laughing. Bucky gives him an offended look but it doesn’t do much to curb Steve’s laughter. “If you want I can fix it,” he tells Bucky. Might as well do something about it given that now half his hands can’t grasp shit without breaking it.

“I’m fine,” Bucky mumbles, grabbing a cup with his other hand and turning on the water.

Tony shrugs, “suit yourself, but don’t think you’re touching me with that thing until its not likely to break me,” he says.

“Pass me the broom,” Steve says to him, prodding him gently and getting a dirty look for it.

“I’m sure its not _that_ bad,” Bucky says, sparing his arm a glance as Tony hands the broom to Steve.

“Well I’m not fucking finding out by testing it on my breakable and fleshy body, Buck. Either let me fix it or keep it away from me,” Tony tells him.

“Just let him look at it, Bucky,” Steve says. “You know he won’t hurt you,” he adds softly.

Bucky wilts a little, clearly upset but he nods.

*

Steve feels for Tony, really, especially since he’s straddling Bucky with Bucky’s head buried in his neck as he tries to work on Bucky’s damn arm. Bucky’s got his other arm curled around Tony’s waist and he can hear that Bucky’s doing something of a decent job keeping his breathing even while Tony directs him around his tools considering Bucky won’t let him leave his lap. All things considered Tony’s working with it well, even if he clearly finds it awkward.

Given his foul mood he expected Tony to be more irritated with Bucky but he’s not. Maybe it’s the engineering task that’s put him in a better mood. “Is anyone going to explain this tacky red star?” he asks. “Because its ugly and not a good shade of red. I love red and this is offensive to the color.”

He looks to Bucky for a beat but he doesn’t say anything. Steve sighs, “that’s… a long story.” One he’s not even sure of the details of, actually. There’s not much Bucky hasn’t filled him in on in his life but the time after the accident and parts of his relationship with Tony are it.

Tony makes a non committal humming noise, petting Bucky’s head briefly before going back to working on the arm. It takes a long time but Bucky eventually softens a little, relaxing as time goes on without incident.

“How long is this going to take?” Bucky murmurs, lifting his head from Tony’s neck. Tony sighs, sitting back a little and turning Bucky’s head away from his arm when he goes to look at it. Right now it’s a bit of a mess so that’s more than likely a good call.

“Awhile,” he says softly and Bucky gives him an annoyed look. “It’ll take less time if you let me move. Its easier for me to get everything I need than it is to try and explain what tool I need to Steve.”

“Can’t end worse than that time on Coney Island,” Steve throws out and Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Well if your stupid ass didn’t eat all that cotton candy it wouldn’t have been a problem,” he points out.

He’s right, but Steve wanted to know what the hype was about. “I maintain that it was worth it,” he says even though it absolutely wasn’t. Bucky does let Tony leave his lap though, laughing a little as he stumbles thanks to what had to be sore legs from sitting the way he was for so long.

“You two are the worst. My legs hurt like hell. Can we get pizza for dinner?” he asks, changing the subject entirely.

“I can probably make pizza,” he says, trying to remember if there’s the ingredients for that in the house. He does the grocery shopping on account of Tony having no practical life skills despite going to Charm School, which should have taught him practical life skills, and Bucky. Bucky is Bucky, the guy would eat out of a trash can and he’d be mostly fine with it. They tested it once and Falseworth almost threw up. Twice.

“Or you can save yourself the time and effort and order it,” Tony points out.

Bucky laughs, “you don’t want to smell what happens if he eats the wrong shit and take out always runs the risk of cross contamination,” he says. Tony makes a face and Steve resents that, really.

“You think I _want_ my ass to do that? I one hundred percent don’t. Also, I don’t want all the weird judgment that comes with my diet either, its annoying.” Easier to make food at home where the only one to judge him is Tony apparently, even though he didn’t even notice the change to his diet.

“Yeah, alphas have a weird thing with meat. I mean sure its good but they’re kind of weird about it,” Tony says like he doesn’t hold the exact same views. Bucky laughs at the look on his face because it must show and Tony frowns. “What?”

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Went To A _Therapist_ To Whine About Veganism. If you liked meat so damn much you would have noticed it was gone from your diet,” Steve tells him. “Also, bacon is overrated.” Could be because his system violently expelled the meat but frankly the overly salty taste of it wasn’t worth the results anyway. And he’s more than happy to eat something he likes results be damned. Cheese is delicious and yeah he sort of has to plan a week where he’s not doing anything to eat it because the results are fucking _awful_ but sometimes the mozzarella sticks are fucking worth it ok.

Tony looks way too offended about his bacon comment but Bucky speaks before he does. “Guess it’s a good thing you aren’t allergic to nuts,” he says and Steve gives him a dirty look.

“Don’t even say that, I would _die_ if I were allergic to nuts.” Ninety percent of his protein comes from some kind of nut based thing and also most vegan substitutes are either nuts or soy. If he were allergic to either one of those things he’s just throw himself off a building and end it all because there goes his entire diet. Or maybe he’ll just eat cheese to death, that seems like a good way to go.

“Well, you were allergic to people for like fifteen years so,” Bucky shrugs and Tony frowns.

“Allergic to people?”

Steve sighs. “You know how people are allergic to pet dander? Well, turns out its possible to be allergic to people dander too. I allergic to _myself_ until I grew out of it.”

He resents Tony for laughing so hard at that he starts crying.

*

Tony gives the pizza a _look_. “If this isn’t cheese what is it?”

“Nuts among other things,” Steve says and what the _fuck_.

“Might as well just chew fucking tree bark,” he mumbles, giving the pizza a distasteful look. “This is anti Italian.”

Bucky starts laughing around his food, thankfully with a mostly functioning arm. It needs a fuck of a lot more work and most of it needs to be replaced but for now he’s avoiding telling Bucky that. Took him long enough to get him to agree to let him work on it and that’s mostly because he wanted to salvage his cups and his relationship. “Its not that bad,” Bucky tells him. “Just try it.”

Fucking _nuts_ on pizza. He lied when he once told Rhodey that his habit of putting pineapple on pizza was the worst thing that could have been done to the food. _Nuts_ on pizza is the worst thing he’s ever seen. Okay, actually its mayonnaise and peas and it was Clint who did that but still. He picks up the slice, giving it a disdainful look before taking a bite.

He fucking _refuses_ to admit that it tastes amazing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _So_ I think I may do a three chapter thing for Tony/Steve like I did for Bucky/ Tony at the start of this series but we shall see. I have ideas, though I'm also open to suggestions!
> 
> Anyway, this is the last chapter of this bad boi and poor fuckin Steve. The good news is that it feels like a pretty complete ending!

Rhodey and Tony watch Sam and Bucky do that weird cobra thing, frowning at them until Steve shows up to do basically the same thing. “Do they even know no one is talking right now?” he asks.

Tony shakes his head. “They’ve been doing this for a half an hour,” he says, “and we don’t know why.”

“Think if I yell ‘fight’ at them they’ll do it?” he asks.

“I don’t know but I one hundred percent want to see a therapist go ham. Do it,” Rhodey tells him, surprising Tony with his response.

“Bucky’s left handed, right?” he asks Steve, who gives him a _look_ because this is clearly something he thinks Tony should know. “Don’t look at me like that, I don’t pay attention to what hand is doing what. I ask because Bucky’s left hand is metal and uh. Don’t think it’d be fun to be punched with it.”

“Its not,” Steve confirms and Tony frowns because uh, _what_? There’s no reason he should have that knowledge but he lets out a long sigh. “That’s a long story and it involves some shit that basically sounds like a conspiracy theory so I’ll spare you.”

Rhodey squints at him because he might approve of Steve over Bucky for some stupid ass reason but that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to go back on that approval at a moments notice. “He used to work for the CIA so like. Probably everything he’s done could be a conspiracy. CIA is trash.”

“I rescind my approval, get away from my best friend,” Rhodey tells Steve.

*

Tony sits in Steve’s lap and thankfully its less awkward now but that’s partially because Bucky is preoccupied with his strange hatred for Sam Wilson. “I don’t know what comes over me but I see his god damn _face_ and I just want to rip the fucking thing off. Its totally unacceptable but shit, I can’t help it. It sounds like an excuse but also its not.”

He looks to Steve but he shrugs. “Don’t know, he’s never done that with anyone before.”

“Its like soul mates, but instead of my soul mate he’s my worst enemy mate,” Bucky says. “We can’t be in the same room together, some shit will happen and neither of us are naturally violent people so that means we’ll have to get creative and like. I don’t think that’s a good thing,” he says.

“Leave Sam alone, he seems fine,” Tony says, earning a raised eyebrow from Steve. “What? I’ve determined that he’s definitely not a cult leader and he’s probably not a serial killer. Anyone’s guess if he’s just a garden variety creep but I think he might be safe from that too.” He’s done his due diligence and by all means Sam can be a petty prick at times but that does seem to be his worst flaw. And Bucky has like ten flaws worse than that so Tony can’t judge Sam without Rhodey being right about Bucky so he’s decided to watch Sam from afar mostly.

Bucky’s eyes go wide as he leans forward, “Sam Wilson is the worst human to have ever lived,” he says.

Steve and Tony share a look. “Worse than like… Hitler, or whomever started the Rwandan genocide, or like… Christopher Columbus?” Tony asks, skeptical.

To his credit, Bucky has to think for a half a second about it. Not to his credit he gives the wrong fucking answer. “Yes,” he says with way too much fucking confidence.

“Yeah, you’re Jewish so I’ll give you shitting on your own people with Hitler, but you’ve got no excuse on the other two,” Tony says.

“Also, everyone knows the worst human to have ever lived is the Kool Aid Man,” Steve says, dead serious. Tony thinks about it for a moment before he starts laughing.

“Oh how come he gets a laugh and I don’t?” Bucky asks.

“Because you were serious about it dipshit,” Tony tells him. “And Captain Crunch is a much worse person.”

Bucky shakes his head. “No you two, Sam Wilson. Worst human on record.”

“I can think of two hundred and twenty people off the top of my head that are worse,” Tony says.

Steve frowns, “that’s a weirdly specific number,” he says.

“It’s the actual number of people who are worse, off the top of my head. Give me some time and I’ll find more,” he says.

Poor Steve looks pained at that. “Your brain sounds exhausting,” he says.

Bucky lets out an annoyed noise, “you have no idea. Sometimes he forgets he’s in the middle of sex because some random science thing has caught his attention,” Bucky says like a fucking _traitor_.

“If he forgets he’s in the middle of sex than _you’re_ the problem,” Steve tells him.

“Am _not_!” Bucky says, offended.

Steve squints, “name a person who can forget that someone is going down on them when its done right,” he says.

“Bucky doesn’t really go down on me that often, so,” Tony shrugs. He regrets having kept his phone in his pocket for this whole interaction because the absolutely _scandalized_ look on Steve’s face is one for the ages.

“What I hear is that you’re inattentive to your partner. So the problem is you,” Steve says. Tony snickers, shaking his head.

“No its not, I genuinely have a hard time not thinking but once I manage to stop that Bucky’s fine in bed,” he says.

“ _Fine_?” Bucky says, offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He’s told himself a million times he would never have this conversation with an alpha and yet. “It means you’re the bestest, most amazing thing _ever_ Bucky,” he says in the most annoying, nasally, Rich And I Know It accent he can manage. Bucky looks affronted but Steve starts laughing.

“Fuck you,” Bucky mumbles to Steve, rightly leaving Tony out of it because he would _not_ be pleased with the results if he said that to him.

“What were you channeling there?” Steve asks.

“The inner depths of Charm School that I fucking failed at like five times. They thought I wasn’t trying but they’re totally wrong, its just that I wasn’t trying to be _good_ I was trying to get kicked out. Took for _ever_ to manage.” His grandfather, he’s sure, had a lot to do with his continued presence and because he’s a dumb dupe who likes Tony too much he believed Tony when he said he’d try. Of course he never specified that he was to try to pass his ridiculous omega training and its not his fault no one ever thought to read him out the fine print.

“I maintain Charm School is not that bad,” Steve says and Tony snorts.

“Come with me to a function, you’ll change your mind.” Bucky gives him an offended look and Tony squints, “don’t look at me like that Steve’s biting the fucking _bullet_ for you. My granddad has been harassing me to introduce you for months and I haven’t on the count of the guy being _insanely_ anti-semitic and I know you don’t really _do_ the whole religion thing much but still. Steve just saved your ass, be grateful.”

“I can handle it,” Bucky says, pouting at him.

Tony reaches out and lays a hand on his arm. “Baby, I’m taking Steve to meet the family over you because I like him less and also because he needs to understand that Charm School is probably where the white people in horror movies summon demons,” he says.

“Ouch,” Steve says, wincing.

He leans back into Steve, “you don’t get to say that until after you meet the family. Think of it as a way to clean up a mess Bucky hasn’t made yet. I know you two are weird and share everything, but I think this time you can take the bullet for him instead of sharing it. Also you asked for this when he disputed my claims of Charm School being the worst.”

*

There is no god damn way this Charm School thing could be that bad but when Steve walks through the doors he swears to god he entered the nineteen _forties_. “What the fuck?” he whispers more to himself than Tony.

“You think the décor is bad? The curriculum is from the eighteen hundreds,” Tony hisses at him. Yeah, okay, he may have assessed wrong and he should have built a stronger relationship with Tony before this because he feels like Bucky should be taking the bullet for him. He’s the one who got Bucky and Tony to deal with their problems mostly _he_ should have to bear witness to whatever the hell is going on here.

He leans down to Tony, “why is everything segregated and why is everyone staring at us?” he asks. And all the omegas in white. It really does look like a scene from a horror movie where they’re all about to be sacrificed to a fictional pagan god.

Tony grins, looking up at him in a way that indicates he damn well knows he’s right and yeah sure but an explanation is needed. “Oh, segregation thing is for purity, so’s the white. And not wearing white, plus I’m accompanied an alpha everyone knows I’m not married to. On a scale of swearing at a cop to selling weapons to terrorists I’ve committed treason as far as the people here are concerned,” Tony tells him.

Over _dating_ someone? Steve has never been happy to be poor until now and he’s still mostly not cool with the poverty thing he’s been stuck with his whole life but he is glad he missed out on whatever cultural travesty _this_ is. “We’re just dating. Why’s that a problem? What, do they arrange marriages in these circles?” he asks, picking an outdated practice on purpose but Tony kind of shrugs like sometimes that _does_ happen and uh _what_?

“My grandfather had been hoping I’ll date Hope van Dyne- Hank Pym’s daughter- for years. ‘Course our fathers hate each other and also Hope’s a raging lesbian and totally not type even if she wasn’t but people _do_ kind of get shoved into a position where its not arranged. But if you don’t marry who they want you to they stare at you like you’re some kind of serial killer who had the audacity to show up to a party,” he says.

Bucky should be damn happy he isn’t here because Steve wants to leave already. He awkwardly trails after Tony, who knows most everyone here and talks with people smoothly not that it seems to matter. Most people are either snide or are outright rude to him. Not that Tony doesn’t dish it right back, he’s surprisingly harsh but Steve figures everyone here has earned it at least a little. When Tony eventually gets to an older man whom Steve can immediately see is related to Tony he’s already praying for the earth to swallow him whole. Maybe a sacrifice has already taken place in the basement, he’ll take being eaten by an eldritch horror over this.

“You’re Bucky, I presume,” the guy says and yeah, no.

“Steve, actually,” Tony says before he can lie and claim to be Bucky to avoid the exact conversation Tony is going to rub his damn grandfather’s face in. If nothing else Steve supposes he knows if Tony ages like his grandfather he’ll age gracefully not that it’ll matter because he’ll have died of embarrassment or old man glaring him down by then.

“I thought you claimed you were in love with this Bucky person,” he says, saying Bucky’s name like it’s a curse. Steve almost has enough of a mind to defend Bucky but keeps quiet mostly because Tony talks before he can.

“Yeah, I’m with him too,” he says casually and Steve is sure his entire body is blushing a red so dark it shouldn’t even be on a skin tone.

“You don’t look surprised,” Tony’s grandfather says, turning to him. He gives Tony a panicked look and Tony grins.

He should not have given Tony a panicked look this is about to go from bad to worse.

“He knows about it, they’re conveniently best friends. Saves a lot of awkwardness and does make for fabulous threesomes,” he says in a chipper tone.

“Its was just one,” Steve says, then realizes what he’s said. “That’s not better. Bye,” he says, fleeing the scene as he pulls his phone out of his pocket to call Bucky to fucking save him before _he_ ends up the human sacrifice.

*

Tony finds Steve and Bucky hiding in the bell tower of the not church but looks exactly like one. They both give him a panicked look for a moment before realizing it’s just him and relaxing. “Thanks for not dragging me into this,” Bucky says and yeah, he should definitely be grateful.

“Hey,” Tony says, walking over to Steve. “Still love me?” he asks because now would be a good time to run screaming.

Steve sighs, “I probably shouldn’t but uh, yeah.”

Tony grins, leaning in to kiss him. “This was kind of a test and not the ‘I’m intentionally manipulating you’ kind of way, more like a ‘throw you into my crazy so you have a chance to back the hell out before its too late and you’re sucked in’ type of way. This kind of crazy shit isn’t going to go anywhere and I didn’t really want to stick either of you in it but uh. I _am_ supposed to take over SI at some point and you more than likely _will_ run into these people again and its going to fucking suck.”

“Why not drag me into it over Steve?” Bucky asks, frowning.

“I already know you can handle my crazy and also you’re sucked in too deep. I was giving Steve a chance to bail,” he says. Poor guy, he’d turned _so_ red after that threesome comment that Tony was sure he was attempting to rapidly evolve into a lobster.

Steve circles an arm around his waist, pulling him closer. “That’s not going to happen,” he says softly, “even if I was pretty sure I was going to die of embarrassment earlier.” Tony shakes his head and leans into Steve, wrapping his arms around him. God, he handled all that with so much more grace than Tony would have in his place. As it was Tony handled it with no grace at all. But blunt honesty has always been his thing. He places his head on Steve’s shoulder, surprised when Steve tilts his head a little, giving him access to his neck. He’s sure its some type of mistake given that alphas aren’t usually open to the whole being marked thing but he leans in anyway, slowly so Steve has time to move his head back, before he scents him carefully. Steve’s arm tightens around him as he sucks in a breath of air and Tony grins and leans into it.

“I had to bribe Bucky with a blowjob to get him to let me do this,” he murmurs in Steve’s ear.

Steve lets out an incredulous snort, “what the hell Bucky? I didn’t raise you to be like this. Don’t go down on him that often, had to be talked into scenting with a damn _blow_ \- do you know what damn year you’re living in?” Steve asks, making Tony laugh.

“Oh shut up, just because I have some more traditional tastes in bed doesn’t mean shit,” Bucky says. “Tony’s fine with it and I make sure he gets what he wants. Also he gives detailed fuckin instructions so its impossible to not ensure he gets what he wants.”

“That’s true, I am back seat fucker,” he says and Steve lets out a loud laugh.

“Oh my god. That is very much to my taste though, actually,” he says and good because that’s how Tony is and he’s not going to change it.

“Uh huh, that’s nice. Come here,” Bucky says, reaching out to Tony. “Steve’s been hogging you,” he adds, wiggling his fingers around. Tony rolls his eyes but pulls himself free of Steve’s grasp and hops onto the ledge they’re on so he can curl up with Bucky. Steve shuffles closer to them, sitting a little off to the side but he pulls Tony’s legs into his lap. Its nice, Bucky’s arms around his waist with his legs in Steve’s lap. Comfortable, even.

They remain silent for a long moment before Steve speaks. “First of all I amend my statement about Charm School not being rich people oppression, but I think that’s because omegas are forced back in time seventy years, not because you’re rich. Also, because Bucky is a fucking _heathen_ in bed apparently I have a lot of ideas so hopefully you’re up them,” Steve says.

“He has a list,” Bucky says. “And a lot of it is more you than me so uh. Have fun!”

Steve raises an eyebrow, “a list?”

Tony shrugs, “ever omega has a list, I’m just ballsy enough to actually do everything on it. But I have a whole other list for you specifically mostly based off that lovely sketch book of yours,” he says, grinning.

“What was in the sketch book?” Bucky asks, frowning.

Steve and Tony share an awkward look. “Nothing you’d be into,” Tony tells him. Despite what Bucky likes to think of himself he’s pretty vanilla in his tastes. Steve on the other hand, Tony wouldn’t have taken him for the more adventurous one in that area but looks are deceiving apparently.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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